Upset, December 2020 / January 2021

** Plus ** THE BEST OF 2020 featuring... Poppy All Time Low Creeper Enter Shikari Code Orange + loads more

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upsetmagazine.com

The Dirty Nil Palm Reader Seahaven

T H E

S M A S H I N G

P U M P K I N S

PURENOISESTOREUK.COM

PURENOISE.NET

HALO OF HURT

NEW ALBUM OUT NOW

DECEMBER 2020 / JANUARY 2021 Issue 61 RIOT 4. THE DIRTY NIL 8. SEAHAVEN 10. PALM READER ABOUT TO BREAK 2021 16. KENNYHOOPLA 20. HOT MILK 22. MEET ME @ THE ALTAR 24. PHEM FEATURES 26. THE SMASHING PUMPKINS THE BEST OF 2020 36. POPPY 40. LOATHE 42. ENTER SHIKARI 44. ALL TIME LOW 48. CREEPER 52. STAND ATLANTIC 56. CODE ORANGE 60. NOVA TWINS 63. ALBUMS OF THE YEAR REVIEWS 64. YUNGBLUD 64. GRANDSON TEENAGE KICKS 66. YOURS TRULY

Upset Editor Stephen Ackroyd Deputy Editor Victoria Sinden Associate Editor Ali Shutler Scribblers Aleksandra Brzezicka, Alexander Bradley, Dan Harrison, Jessica Goodman, Kelsey McClure, Rob Mair, Sam Taylor, Steven Loftin, Tyler Damara Kelly Snappers Andy Ford, Dylan Caderao, Lindsey Byrnes, Sam Tomlinson, Sarah Louise Bennett, Tom Brooker P U B L I S H E D F RO M

W E LCO M E TOT H E B U N K E R.CO M U N I T 10, 23 G RA N G E RO A D, H A S T I N G S, T N34 2R L

All material copyright (c). All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, in whole or in part, without the express written permission of The Bunker Publishing Ltd. Disclaimer: While every effort is made to ensure the information in this magazine is correct, changes can occur which affect the accuracy of copy, for which The Bunker Publishing Ltd holds no responsibility. The opinions of the contributors do not necessarily bear a relation to those of Dork or its staff and we disclaim liability for those impressions. Distributed nationally.

HELLO. We’ve made it. All the trauma, the solitude, the loss of things we previously took for granted. Finally, 2020 is coming to a close - and while that’s just a number on a calendar, hope is also in sight that soon, maybe, life might return to normal.

So, with that in mind, we’ve put together a year end issue that looks both backwards and forwards, celebrating rock music in all its forms.

From our legendary cover stars - The Smashing Pumpkins (yes, that’s one off the bucket list right there), through

to a Best of list featuring so many of our favourite artists, it’s a star studded edition. More than that, though, we’ve also brought together some of our favourite new acts we think will make 2021 one of the brightest, most positive years in ages. Fingers crossed, eh?

S tephen

Editor / @stephenackroyd Upset 3

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THIS MONTH IN ROCK

Everything you need to know about Seahaven’s new album ‘Halo of Hurt’, from the band themselves. p.8

EVERYTHING HAPPENING IN ROCK

FUCK A Words: Steven Loftin. Photos: Sam Tomlinson.

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Palm Reader vocalist Josh Mckeown tells us about how their new record is geared towards trying to help those in need. p.10

ART

Recorded as the world went a little nuts, The Dirty Nil’s third album is a triumph against the odds. But then did we expect anything else? No. Not really. Vocalist Luke Bentham explains all.

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“There’s a big attitude right now of people in rock’n’roll that feels like, ‘we’re just gonna pause, and we’ll revisit our album when things are better’ and all this shit.

I’m not trying to be a dick, but that’s such a loser attitude.”

The Dirty Nil guitarist and vocalist Luke Bentham can come across as a Tasmanian devil kind of character, especially with his smirk gunning down the phone. He loves rock music, and loves his band even more, refusing to stop until the blessed rock in his veins runs dry.

“You have no idea when this is going to end,” he continues. “Just put out your album, do a cool thing around it - like really do a lot of work around it - and then start working on the next one instead of sitting around languishing like fucking lazy boys and waiting until the fucking rain goes away. That just doesn’t make sense to me.

There, welcome to my TED Talk.”

Without a single snarl of animosity from his guffawing words, the tongue-in-cheek nature of the Canadian trio comes to life when chatting with Luke. Right now, he’s stood in the empty shell of the house he and Dirty Nil bandmates, bassist Ross Miller and drummer Kyle Fisher, have shared for the past few years. They’re all moving on to their next chapters, just as their third outing ‘Fuck Art’ edges 6 Upset

closer to its release on New Years Day 2021 - an all-round statement in itself given the album is a celebration of life, its hits as well as its misses, with an unbridled rock soundtrack.

This decision makes immediate sense because The Dirty Nil are a band born out of “a couple of mission statements” including to “troll the world” - before that had such poisonous connotations, mind you - and most of all “to confuse and bemuse is our modus operandi!”

“We definitely have a dark sense of humour about things and a sense of the absurd. But I think, overall, we have a profound love and nerd-like obsession with rock and roll; all of the more tasteful elements of it and shitty like Limp Bizkit/ Sugar Ray parts of it too we have an appreciation for

all of it.”

A self-confessed “type A personality” who revs himself into “a kind of sarcastic state of invincibility,” Luke, and his Dirty Nil motley crew, are the kind of band doing this because they want to.

“We hate the cool kids - the elitist types of guitar-based music in general,” he says. “We enjoy pissing them off and confusing them with bizarre covers and other choices like that. And so I feel that I think that’s why we feel so powerful and fun, because we have a serious sense of mischief and a real feeling of invincibility towards critics or the tastemakers we don’t care.”

Spending his time “trying to get everything out of every single day that [he] possibly can coming up with zany ideas

with the team, and doing everything in my power to help implement them.” That also includes naming their third album, ‘Fuck Art’, after an incident at an art class involving an old man and an outburst at being unable to paint. It truly is an album that wants to celebrate everything but 2020’s eggshell topics.

Within its raucous rock ‘n’ roll soul, amidst the searing guitar lines loaded with smirks and knowing joy come songs of jealousy, love, hope and even vengeance. Complete with moments yearning for an audience to clap in a sweaty club, or just headbanging euphoria, ‘Fuck Art’ is unashamed, unabashed just like its creators.

Struggle isn’t something that The Dirty Nil are averse to, either. Looking back fondly at all those

mountains they’ve had to climb “no matter how hard it was or how nasty things got”, they’ve had to “navigate some super uncertain and bizarre once in a lifetime circumstances,” says Luke.

Avoiding the “languishing lazy boy” approach to 2020 wasn’t so much a choice for Luke and co., nor was it an intrinsic nature. He went through his own period of reflection previously, after noticing

“WE DEFINITELY HAVE A DARK SENSE OF HUMOUR ABOUT THINGS” LUKE BENTHAM

“And we delivered the finest album of the decade, so you know, life’s pretty good!”

that “waiting around on inspiration and all that shit it doesn’t get you anywhere - your life happens.

“Not to get all fucking Oprah with it but I just like trying to see how much I can squeeze out of a day work-wise and fun-wise; that makes me feel really good. The thing in life that makes me the happiest is achieving things with my friends in rock’n’roll.

So, having acquired a good amount of those achievements at this point in our career, it motivates me to work harder every day to keep that going even amongst these less than favourable circumstances.”

Cracking on with writing and exploring where he wants to go with The Dirty Nil, an opportunity now afforded to him by the lack of road to travel, instead of having to output “2000 calories of energy every night”, being at home he’s getting back to that ‘teenager discovering the power of some righteously loud chords and screaming vocals’ feeling. “I’m just running every day, fucking getting high, blasting

guitar and feeling like I’m 19 years old again and just finding what I like about rock and roll and playing loud and fast with my boys like life’s pretty tight right now!”

The arduous journey of being a rock’n’roll band especially for fifteen-plus years - The Dirty Nil have, along with those struggles and mountains to climb, means that those euphoric feelings can “definitely waver” according to Luke.

“There are times where playing rock and roll feels like going to go work at McDonald’s, you know, at certain times when you get your head up your ass - when things aren’t going your way - self-pity can kill you.

“My enthusiasm and feeling of invincibility bounces back very quickly, because all I need to do is learn another song that I’ve loved for a long time or a cool riff, and all of a sudden I feel like I’m 12 again. I find that the harder you work, the more glimpses of that like pure euphoria you get.

It’s not a default setting, and you can’t wait around for it to come. It’s just the product of working hard and feeling confident and good, you know?”

Before leaving Luke to lock up the doors to The Dirty Nil’s grotto for the final time, given he’s put his life in the hands of a rock n roll band, it begs one final question - just what makes the greatest rock album of all time?

“I think that’s a good question. I don’t know what it’s just kind of an overall kind of feel - like it’s kind of like a gift from God, type feel...” He bursts out laughing. “Yeah, I think that we’re merely just receivers of a transmission from the heavens!” P The Dirty Nil’s album ‘Fuck Art’ is out 1st January.

Frank Iero and the Future Violents have announced a new EP. ‘Heaven Is A Place, This Is A Place’ will arrive on 15th January 2021 via UNFD, preceded by a stripped-back cover of REM’s ‘Losing My Religion’.

The Great Escape has announced the First Fifty acts for 2021. Next year’s first names include the likes of Bob Vylan, Chubby And The Gang, Ġenn, Arlo Parks, Bree Runway, Holly Humberstone, Baby Queen, Pa Salieu and loads more. The Great Escape will take place from 12th-15th May at various venues across Brighton.

Drones have announced their second album. ‘Our Hell Is Right Here’ will be released on 12th February via Lockjaw Records. The news arrives alongside the title-track, which features Petrol Girls’ Ren Aldridge.

7 UPSETMAGAZI COM Upset 7

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Everything you need to know about...

Photo: Dylan Caderao.

SEAHAVEN’S ‘HALO OF HURT’

Beach Riot have announced their debut album.

‘Subatomic Party Cool’ will be released in June 2021 via Alcopop! Records, accompanied by a UK headline tour at the same time.

new album

Back with their first full-length in six years, here’s everything you need to know about ‘Halo Of Hurt’ from the band themselves.

THE ALBUM COVER FOR ‘HALO OF HURT’ HAS ACTUALLY BEEN AROUND SINCE WE SCRAPPED A RECORD BACK IN 2016. The general themes on the record remained in line, so we decided it felt right to still use it all these years later.

WE FELT WE LOST A LOT OF THE ORGANIC PROCESS BACK IN 2016 AS WE WERE WRITING & DEMOING EVERYTHING AS ONE PROCESS. When we came back to it in 2019, we wanted to just throw ideas through the wringer until they felt cohesive and complete. Once we knew we had a complete body of work, we then began tracking pre-production.

THIS WHOLE ALBUM PRETTY MUCH CAME TOGETHER AS AN ACCIDENT. I (Kyle) was joking with our booking agent about getting us out to Australia and Japan even though we were inactive. I mentioned Jake at Pure Noise had expressed interest some time back, and he 8 Upset

emailed him on the spot. Within hours we had a meeting set up, and the ball was rolling. Maybe I subconsciously needed that extra push.

THE TIMING COULDN’T HAVE BEEN MORE PERFECT FOR TRACKING THIS. We had a possible studio lined up in May but decided to instead go back to ARC in February. We flew out on Valentine’s Day, tracked for three weeks, came home and within days the world was locked down. Who knows when we would’ve ended up finishing if we chose to wait.

THIS IS ALSO A LONG-OVERDUE COLLABORATION WITH JAKE AT PURE NOISE. His label and our band started relatively around the same time, so we used to crash at his apartment (office) when we first started playing shows up north.

He was always very gracious to us when we would come through the Bay Area. The years went by, and we both did our own thing, so to now work together on this project feels appropriate. P

Seahaven’s album ‘Halo Of Hurt’ is out now.

The Pretty Reckless have announced their new album.

‘Death By Rock And Roll’ is due on 12th February, and will be the band’s fourth full-length, following on from ‘Light Me Up’ (2010), ‘Going To Hell’ (2014), and ‘Who You Selling For’ (2016).

Gone Is Gone have announced their new album, ‘If Everything Happens For A Reason... Then Nothing Really Matters At All’.

Due on 4th December, the release was recorded during lockdown, and is preceded by lead single and video ‘Breaks’.

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INE.

death of an optimist

the debut album

out 4th december

SLEEP

Photos: Andy Ford.

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PLESS Following a brief, unexpected delay after a last-minute label swap to Church Road Records - co-run

by Sammy Urwin and Justine Jones from metal heavyweights Employed To Serve owing to Holy Roar’s implosion, Palm Reader’s new album ‘Sleepless’ has arrived.

It’s an ambitious record that doesn’t shy away from hefty topics like loss and toxic masculinity, via the band’s unique brand of gutsy hardcore.

Vocalist Josh Mckeown tells us about how their new record is geared towards trying to help those in need... after he’s finished unloading the dishwasher, of course.

Hi Josh, what are you up to today?

Hey! It’s 6.48am, so far I’ve had a cup of tea, some breakfast, fed the dog and unloaded the dishwasher.

I used to hate early mornings, but I’ve learnt to appreciate this part of my day.

This year’s been a bit

much, hasn’t it - how are you all doing?

A bit much? Yeah, I’d say it’s been exactly that and then the rest. Despite everything that’s been thrown at us as people and as a band, we’re all doing well. Thanks for asking.

We’ve been lucky enough to have something to work towards, and I think that’s really helped.

Have you picked up any new lockdown skills?

Perfected the art of sourdough or banana bread, for example?

I haven’t picked up any of the skills that seemed

to be particularly popular during lockdown earlier this year. But I did spend a lot of time teaching myself the intricacies of Logic and developing my songwriting skills. Also, day drinking.

We all perfected that skill.

Was the album created during the year, or was it all done and dusted before the mess of 2020 kicked in?

The bulk of ‘Sleepless’ was written in the latter half of 2019, and we recorded it through January 2020. So we were fortunate enough to have it all recorded before ‘the mess’. We were Upset 11

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“I’M WRITING MORE FOR OTHERS” JOSH MCKEOWN

working on the artwork and the rest of the release throughout the first half of 2020, so plenty of band meetings over the internet!

What themes do you cover across the record?

It sounds like you delve into some pretty weighty topics.

I made a conscious decision to take a step away from writing solely about my own experience, so this record is intentionally more varied in its subject matter. I’ve written about the mystery of love’s intoxication, and its dark beauty. I’ve written of the sleepless nights that surround fight or flight decisions. I’ve written to show respect to grieving mothers. I’ve written of the strength in overcoming an abusive past life. I’ve written for myself a lot in the past, but now I feel like I’m writing more for others and I really hope

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these songs help those who need it.

Do any of the subjects feel even more pertinent now than they were when you first wrote about them?

I wouldn’t say that any of the songs necessarily have any more or any less meaning now than they did when we wrote them.

But there is somewhat of a running theme of overcoming adversity in most of the songs I write, and I know that sentiment feels more important than ever!

How did you approach evolving the band’s sound for this one?

We never set out with the intention of having a record sound a certain way; it just sort of forms itself during the writing process. With no set direction, the songs are given the freedom to

develop, and that’s where the band’s sound evolves.

We leave our options open.

Don’t worry though; we’re still working on our tropical goth record.

How are you finding the label swap? That must’ve been an unexpected upheaval.

It’s been very close to painless for us. That’s due to the hard work of everyone involved behind the scenes. We’ve really struck gold with our team, and we’re extremely happy to be able to move forward with Church Road Records.

Pandemic and label move aside, did you come up against any unexpected challenges?

There are always unexpected challenges. I suppose that means that we should expect them!

From the writing process to the release day, we faced challenges that really tested us. Personally, I struggled a lot with how much pressure I put on myself while writing. The stress and anxiety stayed with me through the recording process and even after. That really surprised me. But yeah, there are always unexpected

challenges, and there are usually too many.

Have you been able to plan much for next year?

Not at all, haha! It surprises me when I see ‘post-COVID’ events being planned for 2021. We’re not going to book any shows until we know they are actually going ahead. The best/only option for most bands right now is to stream a show.

We’ve seen that and plan to go above and beyond that mark to celebrate the release of ‘Sleepless’. This cinematic accompaniment will be the first time people will experience ‘Sleepless’ live, and we’ll be playing some old material too.

With the help of some very talented friends and our amazing team, we’ve created a live performance piece that we feel will perfectly showcase the new material and really elevate the release of ‘Sleepless’ for our fans. Massive shout out to St Edmund’s church in Rochdale for the use of their stunning building on this project, it is truly breathtaking, and we’re so grateful for the opportunity to record in that space.

Palm Reader’s album ‘Sleepless’ is out now.

DEBUT EP AVAILABLE NOW

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ABOUT TO BREAK 2021

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ABOUT TO BREAK 2021

New year. New music. New names. After twelve weird, not so wonderful months, there’s a lot riding on 2021.

Thankfully, there’s also a lot to get excited about. Over the next few pages, we’ll introduce you to some of them.

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Words: Aleksandra Brzezicka.

23 years old and skipping genre lanes without a second thought, KennyHoopla is rising fast.

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ABOUT TO BREAK 2021

W

hen KennyHoopla’s ‘how will i rest in peace if i’m buried by a highway’ hit one million views on YouTube earlier this year, the industry got on its toes, wondering who is this boy coming through, out of nowhere, with 2000s indie melancholia and his heart up for grabs.

Only a few months later this 23-year-old, Wisconsin-based singer - also known as Kenneth La’ron - got an EP out and booked Europe tour with Yungblud. A whole new life has unravelled in front of him in a blink of an eye. Though, neither the sudden success nor fans crowning him a love child of Bloc Party, New Order and Tyler, The Creator has shocked Kenny. He was playing to win since day one. It just had to happen.

“I think everyone else was more surprised that it was so quick. I feel like I’ve been about it since I came out of the womb. I guess I’m not surprised because I’m the person who’d get it done at all cost. No matter what. No matter how long it takes. That’s just one part of me, that I know for certain, more than anything, is that I can’t stop until I get what I need,” says Kenny, in his usual considered manner.

If you’re in love with something, you want to give it your 100 per cent. Always. And if you’re Kenny, one of the most ambitious young musicians around right now, you don’t stop at 100; you keep on going.

Though he’s fully devoted to music now, it started out as one of his long-term, and years-lasting, artoriented affairs. “I’ve always been involved with music, but now that’s probably my main obsession. I think it just eventually found its way to the forefront. It’s unignorable,” he explains. It came naturally, as a part of the process, where the motivation isn’t getting the product, the songs out, but need to put to use the urge to create. To not to give a damn whether he should do it or not. “It wasn’t’ like ‘oh I wanna do music’, and I was just more like me doing what I want and how I want. Whatever the consequences were. That’s how I’ve always been,” he elaborates.

In Kenny’s musical microverse, there’s no space for anyone else. In

a good way. He’s not trying to be like or sound like his peers. It’s not like he wants to limit his options, but rather free himself from the pressure to imitate anything he’s heard before.

That’s why he doesn’t have a direct answer when asked about artists who have contributed to his sonic landscape. “I don’t know because I feel like I’m so in love with music, and I think one of my biggest things is not being influenced exactly. A lot of artists that I do like taught me to be myself. I like Passion Pit a lot. I really like Enya; I used to love Tupac too,” Kenny shares.

As he grew up in the 2000s, Kenny’s music mirrors a lot of sentimentality of this period combined with the thrills of riding

“IT’S LIKE THE FEELING OF THE HIGH OR BEING IN LOVE” KENNYHOOPLA

those emotional rollercoasters going round inside of any young adult’s mind. He captured the nostalgia of past years to recover the parts that we’re missing now, and gracefully locked them away in his songs, so we can feel what we once did; what he does now.

“It’s like the feeling of the high or being in love. I think that’s what a lot of indie rock and pop does and that’s why people like it. I feel like it’s something very specific and I know this feeling very well, so it’s just natural. I feel like it’s just like if you get it, you get it if you don’t, you don’t, kind of thing. There’s a certain vulnerability and patheticness in indie pop/rock which is just, I don’t know, putting your heart out there.

That’s kinda sounding crazy,” Kenny

opens up. If that’s crazy, it means that thousands of people who’d fallen for his tender demeanour have lost their minds too.

Kenny casts the simplest and strongest spell through his songs – authenticity. “I can’t not be me. I don’t have any gimmicks or anything. I really don’t know how not to be myself,” he says. Kenny is an outlooker in the race of ‘cool’ who’s unintentionally heading for first place, at his own pace. “Everyone has the story of their life. I guess I’m just trying to break that down, mentalise and process it. Everyone has the story, I guess. Mine is real,” he points out.

Wanting to share a part of the story, he released an EP, named after his breakthrough track, ‘how will i rest in peace if i’m buried by a highway’, in May. Looking back, he’d rather rewrite this chapter.

“It wasn’t what I wanted it to be at all. I honestly wish it sounded different, and I could’ve presented it differently. It was rushed on, and things were all over the place. I was going all over the place, and I was scrambled in my head, which is what it sounds like. Which is the person I am, I am all over the place. Sonically and mentally,” Kenny comments.

A few months passed, and he’s all over the place again: working on his debut album (top secret for now so no tea spilt here) as we speak, and is fresh from recording a song with Blink-182’s Travis Barker. “It’s for young me and current me a fucking dream come true. It’s like paying respects to the culture and putting an imprint. It’s definitely more of a respect thing than anything that is like for me,” he says, and reveals that there’s also a music video coming.

While waiting for it, have a listen of two new versions of ‘lost cause’, one featuring The Neighbourhood’s Jesse Rutherford, the other, grandson. And then there’s the tour with Yungblud, too. “You can only expect something great, or certain ungraceful chaos, to come out of that.”

Despite all the recognition he’s getting, Kenny stays grounded, remembering all he had to overcome to be right here, right now. “I’m always just grateful. With anything, I’m just grateful to be out of this Upset 17

ABOUT TO BREAK 2021

“I REALLY DON’T KNOW HOW NOT TO BE MYSELF” KENNYHOOPLA

situation that I’ve been in my whole life. People where I am from, and people like me don’t get wild chances like this, so it’s hard to be excited more than just to be grateful. I feel like the gratefulness will always overwrite anything. I’m just trying to get the job done.” He’s becoming a role model for underprivileged creatives. “People who came out of unfortunate circumstances, surroundings. People who see from all perspectives. And of course, people of colour,” he elaborates.

KennyHoopla is a real-deal fighter; his battles are fought with words. His Insta bio ‘raised by wolves’ feeds of that idea. “It just stood for having to survive in my surroundings and not having the most ideal upbringing. It really just comes down to just survivalism and having to keep the ones close to you - good ones, I guess.”

In an industry where everyone wants to be the next big someone, to ride along with the newest trend-wave or to be just pulled in by somebody else’s star-power, KennyHoopla takes the most radical approach of them all. He wants to be himself and is damn good at it.

“Every day, I just strive to be creative; that’s why I can only take one step at the time. Not succumb to other people’s ideologies or their pressure on me because I’ve just got me where I am. I’m trying to be the strongest, the best version of myself that I can possibly be. That’s all I am about: just transcending. I feel like everyone has a superhuman in them,” he says. There’s something special about this one. P 18 Upset

ABOUT TO BREAK 2021

Ashnikko

Kid Brunswick

Superlove

How to sum up Ashnikko? The American singer, songwriter, and rapper has been making waves with a super assertive, bold take on alt-pop; everything about her oozes style and punk spirit. Her debut mixtape, ‘Demidevil’ is coming in February.

Pushing through with alt-hiphop-emo vibes, West London newcomer Kid Brunswick is notable for his unflinchingly honest take on difficult topics like mental health and unhappy relationships. His frustration oozes through every note and lyric.

Bristol pop-rock trio Superlove are currently riding high off the back of their just-dropped self-titled EP - a playful five-track effort that sees them weave no-holdsbarred vocals and hooks through an impressive range of tracks.

Noisy

UPSAHL

NOAHFINNCE

Worthing-based NOISY are catchy as anything, throwing out irresistible beats and hooks like no one’s business but it’s their sense of humour that really shines. Catch them on tour with YUNGBLUD, You Me At Six and Bad Sounds during the next few months.

As far as we’re concerned, UPSAHL can do no wrong.

Her alt-pop hits this year have been relentlessly on repeat - immensely sassy, easy to identify with barbs that take no nonsense from anyone. ‘People I Don’t Like’ is a particular highlight.

Newly signed to Hopeless Records, 21-year-old NOAHFINNCE is coming through with an utterly relentless energy and enthusiasm. It’s all very fun, with big Green Day-at-theirmost-irreverent vibes. He’s gonna have a big 2021.

renforshort

Chloe Moriondo

iann dior

Canadian up-and-comer renforshort makes a grungefuelled alt-pop that has over the past few months seen her release both a team-up with Mike Shinoda (‘i drive me mad - Mike Shinoda mix’), and a track influenced by Scott Pilgrim (‘nostalgic’). Nice.

In a year that’s been quite difficult on bands, those who can make music at home on their own have really flown - including online sensation Chloe Moriondo. Her latest tracks are full of 90s teen flick, Avril Lavigne feels.

Catch her on tour in spring.

Puerto Rican-born, Texasraised rapper iann dior has already featured on a Number 1 single (24KGoldn’s recent hit, ‘Mood’) AND released collabs with Lil Baby (‘Prospect’), and Travis Barker and Machine Gun Kelly (‘Sick And Tired’).

2021’s gonna be big.

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ABOUT TO BREAK 2021

H

ot Milk have been threatening to bubble over for a while now.

Formed by pals Jim Shaw and Han Mee in 2018, the Manchester band have been releasing emo-pop numbers in abundance; every one sounding like a sure-to-be-live-classic. Then there have been the tours, taking in massive venues with the likes of You Me At Six and Foo Fighters. Fresh from the release of their single ‘Glass Spiders’, they’re teeing up for a big 2021. Jim tells us more.

mix everything we love, which IMO is exactly how it should be.

What have you guys been up to lately, did you have to scrap many of your 2020 plans?

Did we scrap any of our 2020 plans?!

Haha! This whole year has been a flurry of writing and rewriting our plans. We’ve just tried to be reactive and go with the flow, making the best out of this poo pile.

We’ve written a tonne of music, solidifying our next release. We’re buzzin’ about these next songs, as we really think it’s taken Hot Milk to the next level. We’ve also recorded ‘Digital Anarchy’, a high octane, big production slice of live Hot Milk. Our latest single ‘Glass Spiders’ came out a few weeks back too, which is our most personal song to date. See, we’ve just been trying to stay busy!

Is there anything you’ve done because of social-distancing that you wouldn’t have otherwise, but really enjoyed?

No. It fucking sucks. I miss people - I just love a hug, you know?

How have you found being creative this year?

It’s been super hard, you know?

You write songs based on your life experiences and currently we’re making none. It dries up the creative well somewhat, but it’s pushed us to refine creativity in different ways.

What can you tell us about the new material you’ve been working on?

It’s wild, it’s intense, it’s rock’n’roll, baby! It embodies us perfectly in a record. If you know us, you know to expect the unexpected, we like to keep you on your toes, haha. It’s basically a 20 Upset

Has the general state of things helped with inspiration for lyrical themes?

Yes and no, you can’t be too focused on the state of the world, or it’ll eat you up. It’s such a heavy burden to constantly wear that sometimes you have to put it down and think about something else. Granted, it’s pretty impossible to ignore, and important issues have fuelled the fire for some songs, but we try not to let it drown us.

Are you looking towards an album for next year? What’s the plan there?

Not an album per se, more like an LP. It’s written, ready to be recorded once the world lets us. It’s so important to us that this is done the way we imagined, I’m not half arsing or rushing something as important to us just because the world is on pause.

You’ve already been booked for Reading & Leeds, what do you think 2021’s going to look like for live music?

These are heavy questions. I want to manifest in positivity, so let’s say everything is back to normal in May. I literally can’t think otherwise at the moment, it doesn’t bear dwelling on.

What else have you got coming up?

We’re looking at booking some socially distant shows. For a while, we were anti the idea, as we didn’t know how a Hot Milk show would work without people climbing on top of each other. I think now, we’re desperate to see our fans face to face and feel the rumble from a PA. Better than sitting on your arse all day, eh!? P

“IT’S WILD, IT’S INTENSE, IT’S ROCK ‘N’ ROLL, BABY!” JIM SHAW

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ABOUT TO BREAK 2021

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hat a year it’s been for bands.

Can’t tour; can’t rehearse. Can’t record new music, unless it’s over Zoom. In a period that’s really thrown a spanner in the works of most up-and-comers, Meet Me @ The Altar have created an exceptional, unparalleled buzz.

Tipped by everyone from All Time Low’s Alex Gaskarth to Halsey, and inking a deal with Fueled By Ramen over the summer, the pop-punk trio - Edith Johnson (vocals), Téa Campbell (guitar), and Ada Juarez (drums) - are breathing new life into one of rock’s most beloved genres.

Tell us about the band then - how did you lot meet, and decide to get together?

Ada: Téa and I met on YouTube after she came across a drum cover I did of ‘Holding On To You’ by twenty one pilots. I was 16, and she was 14. She messaged me on Kik, and we became friends immediately! We both wanted to be in a band, and naturally, that’s exactly what we did - we started Meet Me @ The Altar. We ended up holding auditions around the same time, and that’s how we met Edith - but she didn’t join the band for another two years.

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“WE HAVE A LOT OF STUFF PLANNED FOR 2021 SO FAR” EDITH JOHNSON

What drew you to pop-punk?

Ada: I was drawn to pop-punk because it had all the aspects of what I loved in music. The energy, the catchy melodies, the fast drum beats, and the community was so fun to be around back when I was in high school.

Can you remember the first song you wrote together?

Ada: The first song we wrote together was for our first ever EP called ‘Red Walls’. Téa wrote the guitars and the melodies and sent it to me, and I just remember sitting behind my drum kit and jamming to it until I did something I liked. After a couple recordings back and forth - we eventually finished the song and it felt so rewarding! It

was the first song we ever wrote, and we did it remotely. As soon as we accomplished that we KNEW we could do this band from different states.

What were your first steps to get your music ‘out there’?

Edith: The first steps we took to get our music out there was playing a BUNCH of local shows, going to a producer that had the ability to make our music sound amazing, (people love well-produced music) and then submitting our releases for Spotify playlists.

Are there any lyrical themes or vibes you’re especially drawn to?

Edith: Lyrical themes or vibes I’m especially drawn to are honest lyrics.

For a lot of musicians and writers, writing is an outlet and a way of therapy. That is how it is for us, we write about what we are feeling at the moment: Which can be sad, or happy!

There is so much beauty in honesty and vulnerability, especially in music. For vibes, I really enjoy happy sounding songs, with a lot of energy!

You’ve had a cracking year, what’ve been your highlights?

Edith: Some highlights of this year have definitely been Alex Gaskarth [All Time Low] and Dan Campbell [The Wonder Years] tweeting about us and

ABOUT TO BREAK 2021

showing us loads of support, being one of the recipients of Halsey’s Black Creators Fund, and of course: getting signed to Fueled By Ramen, and releasing the new video for ‘Garden’!

Are you working on new music at the moment?

Edith: Yes! We are working on new music at the moment. In my opinion, it is the best stuff we have written so far. It is still very MMATA, meaning it is still very upbeat, fun, energetic, and punk. What makes it different than

anything else we have released so far is the maturity level. Our new music is very mature, you can tell we are growing up - BUT it is STILL very poppunk, still has great catchy melodies, and of course - still has a bunch of breakdown and crazy riffs.

Do you have much in the diary for 2021 yet?

Edith: We have a lot of stuff planned for 2021 so far. New music will be released, and shows will hopefully be played! We are very excited

to hopefully go on tour with Hot Mulligan, Heart Attack Man, and Super American this May, and are equally excited for Riot Fest in September.

If you could check anything off your bucket list during the next 12 months, what would it be?

Edith: If I could check anything off my bucket list during the next 12 months, it would be going on loads of HUGE tours, and just releasing new music the girls and I are CRAZY proud of. P Upset 23

ABOUT TO BREAK 2021

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ABOUT TO BREAK 2021

W

ith recent tracks and co-writes with the likes of G-Eazy, Machine Gun Kelly, Lil Tracy and iann dior, it would probably be quicker to list the people Los Angelesbased alt-pop wonder phem hasn’t collaborated with. One of the most interesting acts around, she also recently performed on the pre-US election Noah Centineo and YUNGBLUD-hosted #DefeatByTweet livestream event, to raise money for The Justice League.

What first drew you to music, did you grow up in a musical household?

Yes, I did. My mom plays piano, and my dad played drums/vibraphone and wrote, so we grew up always having music in the house. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for me to fall asleep to either one of them playing some instrument.

How did you go from tinkering about on your own, to getting your music ‘out there’, picking up collaborations, writing credits and the like?

Everything that has happened has happened extremely organically. I wish I could say there was a grand master plan. The only thing I did was work really hard and kinda know what I wanted, but what I wanted shifted a few times along the way, and I think that’s natural and even continues to happen now.

Do you prefer songwriting, or performing?

I think they’re both exciting in their own ways. Performing tends to take more energy emotionally than songwriting sometimes, especially because you know you’re responsible for entertaining large groups of people as opposed to just zoning off in your own world in the studio.

“I LIKE WHEN THE UNIVERSE SURPRISES ME” PHEM

Are there any lyrical themes you find yourself returning to?

Yes. Catholicism, sex, sexuality, God. What’s been the highlight of your time in music so far? It sounds like you have a lot to choose from.

Dang, that’s such a hard question!!!

Some of my best moments are riding home in the car after a really amazing session, listening to the bounce of whatever I just made, maybe smoking a cig, maybe not.

Just screaming all the words, knowing I made something special.

That, and also just hanging out with like-minded artists and making art.

Sometimes I’ll be in a situation that’s really amazing, and I’ll just stop for a

second close my eyes and say thank you to the universe, because it just feels too good.

What’s on your ‘music career bucket list’?

I wanna work with Tyler, The Creator, but even if I don’t, I’m cool. Maybe we could just be friends, that would be enough. I wanna work with Rick Rubin, I wanna sell out a headlining tour. I just wanna keep topping myself in terms of art, be impressed with whatever I make.

The #DefeatByTweet event looked like a fun initiative, do you enjoy getting involved in politics?

Honestly, it kind of stresses me out, but when it’s for a good cause and to change the world, I’m down to use my platform to help in any way I can.

Do you have lots of plans in place for next year? It must be difficult working around potential restrictions at the moment.

I think we all have been trying to plan our lives and every time we try to plan anything it changes anyways, so I’ve been enjoying living in the moment and not worrying about tomorrow so much. I’ve had some cool things happen to me recently that were random, and I could have never expected, so I’m kind of enjoying going with the flow and not planning. I LIKE WHEN THE UNIVERSE SURPRISES ME. Is there anything else we should know?

I love my fans very much.. and I’m grateful to be where I’m at. I don’t take anything for granted. P Upset 25

COVER STORY

SMASHING HITS.

THE SMASHING PUMPKINS

THE SMASHING PUMPKINS ARE AN INSTITUTION. BACK WITH ‘CYR’ - THEIR FIRST ALBUM IN OVER TWENTY YEARS TO FEATURE ICONIC FRONTMAN BILLY CORGAN, GUITARIST JAMES IHA AND DRUMMER JIMMY CHAMBERLIN - THEY STILL HAVE SOMETHING TO PROVE. WORDS: ALI SHUTLER. PHOTOS: JONATHAN WEINER, LINDA STRAWBERRY

COVER STORY

Billy Corgan is after a scrap, but what’s new? Well, with a rebooted version of his band behind him, The Smashing Pumpkins are not only about to release ‘CYR’ (their first proper album since 1999 to feature Corgan, James Iha and Jimmy Chamberlin three-quarters of their original line-up), but there are two more nearing completion.

After twenty years of speculation, middling reviews and questions about their relevance, he’s out to prove there’s still life in The Smashing Pumpkins.

“It’s one thing for you and me to talk about being misjudged, misunderstood or that things weren’t fair but people like proof. It’s like a fight, right? You can talk a bunch of

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“THERE’S SOMETHING MAGICAL ABOUT NOT CARING IF THE WORLD BLOWS UP” BILLY CORGAN

shit but until you get into the ring and punch the other guy’s lights out…”

Corgan explains via Zoom. “Well, let’s see if this 30+ year old institution still has enough of a punch to knock out the other side one more time.”

Formed in 1988, The Smashing Pumpkins have always been a divisive force. Their first two albums ‘Gish’ and ‘Siamese Dream’ were released at the height of grunge and saw the band cut the moody genre with a psychedelic spirituality. It instantly set them apart. “We were rejected by every scene that we were ever supposed to belong in. That just made us angrier and weirder,” Corgan says. The epic two-hour double album ‘Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness’ dabbled in a bit of everything and remains one of the best selling records of all time, while follow-ups ‘Adore’ and ‘Machina’ (a loose concept album playing up to how the public saw the Pumpkins which saw a rock star named ‘Zero’

hear the voice of God through radio static, rename himself Glass, suffer loss and fade into insanity and obscurity) continued to toy with electronics, dream pop and the unexpected. “If The Smashing Pumpkins had ever been just a grunge band, I wouldn’t have joined,” Chamberlin asserts. “People didn’t know what the fuck was going on, but we’ve never afraid to burn it down and try new stuff.”

Growing up in Chicago away from cultural hotbeds of LA, Seattle or New York, Corgan always knew there was something more out there for him, he just didn’t know how to get there. Ambitious, hopeful but also nihilistic, furious and downtrodden, for a decade The Smashing Pumpkins soundtracked coming of age in a place you didn’t belong. In the 90s, he used to tell interviewers that “if I’d been accepted as a child by my classmates, maybe I wouldn’t have turned out to be the weirdo that I was, but I was rejected so brutally early on that it made me turn into this other person.”

Sitting confidently on the outside (Corgan calls himself “the outlier of the outliers”), the band “fought a very particular time of American history,” he explains. “We were taught about how great America was, and we were told that this was the perfect version of the world. We knew it wasn’t so perfect. We were talking about what went on behind closed doors and how we didn’t believe in the institutions we were told to believe in.” Of course it connected.

The band quickly became one of the biggest around, but they were also hated. “The very things we were challenged for were what people were most afraid of,” says Chamberlin.

“We knew what people were saying about us, but we just didn’t

THE SMASHING PUMPKINS

COVER STORY

give a fuck.” Instead, Corgan took all that criticism head-on. “We had people constantly telling us, ‘don’t be so loud, don’t be so weird and don’t piss off the journalists’, but we really didn’t care. There’s something magical about not caring if the world blows up.”

“I remember playing a festival in 92, and there were 40,000 people moshing. There was this eruption of energy that’s almost indescribable.

It was this ecstatic - ‘thank god somebody understands that there’s more to life than this world I’m being presented’. Once you get a sense of that, you feel like you can go all the way with it. Typical megalomania, we felt like we could take over the world.”

“We were out of our minds. There were drugs, egos, misinformation and that era of the record business certainly didn’t help anybody,” says Chamberlin, who was kicked out the band in 1996 in a bid to break an addiction to heroin. “There wasn’t any emotional management going on.

We were just left to our own devices to either deal with it, get lucky or do something destructive. Unfortunately, there was a lot of destruction going on.” After a decade of fighting the

30 Upset

world and themselves, The Smashing Pumpkins broke up in 2000.

And for many, that’s where the story ends. Corgan’s new band Zwan didn’t really take off, and while promoting his solo album ‘TheFutureEmbrace’, journalists only really wanted to ask him about The Smashing Pumpkins. “Even when I wanted to let it go, they wouldn’t.”

So, he decided to take it back on.

Taking out a full-page advert out in The Chicago Tribune (“You need a bit of bluster about it because you’re trying to convince yourself that it can happen”) he announced his desire to reunite The Smashing Pumpkins to the world as well as his bandmates, writing: “I want my band back, and my dreams.”

Chamberlin was the only one to return (they’d been regular collaborators during the hiatus) and the pair released ‘Zeitgeist’ in 2007 before going on to headline Reading & Leeds. With a new family at home though, Chamberlin quit in 2009, but The Smashing Pumpkins continued with an ever-shifting line-up. The dreamy ‘Oceania’ came in 2012, with ‘Monuments To An Elegy’ following in 2014 with Motley Crue’s Tommy Lee behind the drum kit.

Each record sold less than the previous one had and “it just wasn’t the same,” according to Corgan.

“When you bring people into an established world like The Smashing Pumpkins, it’s difficult to navigate, and we just weren’t clicking.” With everything they did compared to what had come before, Corgan was busy fighting “the ghost of

The Smashing Pumpkins.” If it was a brand new band, they’d have been fine but asking “that band to be The Smashing Pumpkins, it’s like they couldn’t handle it and neither could I.” With none of the original line-up involved, the current band never clicking and new music met with a general shrug, Corgan thought he was finished. “If you’ve had a moment in your life where youth culture is very focused on you, then when changes happen, there’s this feeling of abandonment. It feels like something has gone wrong.” Now he’s accepted that “it’s just the natural evolution of life”, but at the time, “it felt futile. I’m not trying to be overly dramatic, but that’s when people get suicidal, and there were times when I really struggled with it. It felt like this magical journey was over.” There were many days where he woke up and thought “it’s over, just accept it, but I fought that idea to the ground.”

Scrapping the ‘Teargarden by Kaleidyscope’ project midway through, Corgan reached out to the original line-up to put those ghosts to rest. Bassist D’arcy Wretzky was in

THE SMASHING PUMPKINS

“WE WERE JUST LEFT TO OUR OWN DEVICES TO EITHER DEAL WITH IT, GET LUCKY OR DO SOMETHING DESTRUCTIVE” JIMMY CHAMBERLIN

talks to rejoin, but they fell through, with each side publicly blaming the other. Iha and Chamberlin did come back though, joining Corgan and guitarist Jeff Schroeder (a member since 2007). “Once you have this sort of OG line-up together, it’s really just about making good music. It’s not us versus someone else’s idea of the band now, it’s just us versus us.”

The band went into the studio to record a single as a declaration of intent, but ended up with eight. “It

was just us having a laugh, but it was nice we captured ourselves.” Those tracks were released as ‘Shiny and Oh So Bright Vol. 1: LP No Past. No Future. No Sun.’ ahead of a worldwide arena tour that saw the band draw heavily from those first five albums.

“The success of that tour proved to people that there was a lot of life left in the band,” Corgan says.

“Through those weird years between 2009 and 2014, there were a lot of people who basically wrote the band

off or believed it wasn’t valid because somebody wasn’t standing on stage.

I had to convince a lot of people that there were still great days ahead for The Smashing Pumpkins.” But, that’s hard to do if you’ve always said that.

“I’m not in a position to go and argue it because most people don’t agree with me, so I’m the drunk guy at the bar arguing about how the game should have ended,” he explains.

“This might sound really boorish, but the best way to make the argument is to be great.” Which is where ‘CYR’ comes into play.

“This album is the result of us trying to come into the modern world,” Corgan says but rather than just use Lil Peep inspired beats (an artist who he believes was “his generation’s Kurt Cobain”), the band wanted it to feel like their own trip. Chamberlin hopes that “the whole record will surprise people,” he explains. “Under the best circumstances, it’ll reaffirm for people what the band has always been about, which is pushing creative boundaries and not being reliant on old tropes to get our point across.”

“There’s a certain spirit in the band that’s valuable right now. In a weird way, the world has caught up with our uniqueness,” says Corgan.

The band have never stuck to a single lane so this genreless landscape they find themselves in isn’t so disarming.

With more electronics than any album since ‘Adore’ and technology that’s able to capture “the tension in the air”, it’s a record that speaks of the “rapidly disintegrating situation in America,” Corgan continues. “The hyperpolarisation of our politics and our media has created real rifts in culture. There’s been a tension in the air, and it’s been growing for a long time. What’s sad is people aren’t talking like they used to.” But he feels like he has “something to say that adds to the conversation.”

“The world needs outliers like me; people just outside the line to remind you there’s a different way to look at things. You need somebody tapping on the glass, saying ‘you’re all a little too comfortable, you need to hear some perspective’.” He doesn’t think he knows it all, though. “Some of the issues going on in America have made me think about my place in the world and whether I can contribute in a different way.”

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COVER STORY

“Music can be a common denominator that brings culture together,” Chamberlin adds. “But I’m not going to place myself responsible for that.”

There’s “always pressure,” when it comes to new Pumpkins music.

“There’s always somebody mad,” Corgan explains. “The ‘Gish’ fans hated ‘Siamese Dream’, and the ‘Siamese Dreams’ fans hated ‘Melon Collie’ so we’re used to that part. I’m not interested in repeating myself.

I like having something new to say.”

But the pushback runs deeper than old skool fans afraid of change.

“If you had told me at the beginning that I would have the success in the 90s that I had, I would have never believed the way that people spoke about me in the 00s,” Corgan says, warning us he’s being “overly simplistic. You go from being ignored to being celebrated and cheered to being jeered.”

He uses characters like Zero to distance himself from the more personal attacks, and it’s left him fighting a meta-narrative he doesn’t believe is true. “We don’t really think 32 Upset

about the legacy of the band because it seems like no one really wants the real story. A 30-year-old band going over to London and selling out Wembley Arena, that’s nothing to shake your head at, right?” he asks.

“But you read the press, and it’s like a different reality. They believe I’m washed up, out of mind and the worst person in the world.”

It might seem easy to shrug off the hate, but those views “do affect reality,” he says. “If a bunch of people think you’re Attila The Hun, they’re not coming to your show, and they’re not listening to your fun new single.

There’s a lot of people that wouldn’t consider us legendary.”

This is despite the band releasing one of the biggest selling albums of all time, inspiring the likes of My Chemical Romance and Biffy Clyro, and creating a body of work that “moves through a series of genres and maintains a high level of integrity”, like The Cure, The Who, The Rolling Stones, U2, The Beatles and Depeche Mode.

“You can point to a lot of things about me as a person, but my

statistics are good. I’m not saying we’re picked on. We just don’t maybe get the credit that we’ve earned.

When you ask the question about legacy, I just assume they’re gonna write us out of history.” Chamberlain would rather not think about it. “It’s not a fun gig to write your epitaph in real-time.”

It’s why, as well as working on a series of forward-facing albums under the ‘Shiny and Oh So Bright’ umbrella (‘CYR’ is volume two and

“IT FELT LIKE THIS MAGICAL JOURNEY WAS OVER” BILLY CORGAN

THE SMASHING PUMPKINS

there’s a ten-track volume three being finished off as we speak) the band are also making a sequel to ‘Melon Collie’ and ‘Machina’. “I’m working on 46 songs at the moment.

I should be at the dentist because I worry about my teeth,” Corgan says with a grin.

“There are moments in your life where you have to be willing to risk everything.” For the Pumpkins, the first one was ‘Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness’. “If you put out a double-album, you’re asking for it.”

Especially when it’s so much more expansive to what you’ve done before. The sequel feels like another risk. “Obviously there won’t be the same stakes now, but this feels similar. And it feels right.”

More than a nostalgia-driven callback to a more successful time (“we’ve never been a generational thing. If this is just a sentimental journey then that doesn’t do anybody any good”), this sequel record is being made to “try and close the loop on the meta-narrative” that the band have been fighting against since the 00s. “If ‘Melon Collie’ is about the rise and arrival of a person, ‘Machina’ is about their dissipation,” Corgan says.

“In essence, ‘Machina’ was the middle of the movie. Even if he just dies and goes to heaven, there’s still more story to tell because nobody wants to watch a movie where the guy just dies. This record is the resurrection, redemption and finish of a narrative.”

That’s always mirrored The Smashing Pumpkins’ own. It might be the end of that particular tale, but Corgan says

he’s “love there to be more. A sequel to the sequel, why not?”

Sure, the future is getting harder to predict in general, and a band like The Smashing Pumpkins have always had a reckless spirit, but for the first time ever, the band doesn’t feel destructive. “This feels right, and this feels like a thing that can go on for a long time, in a way that I don’t think it ever has. We did end up learning from that journey through the fire,” says Chamberlin, now sober for almost 20 years. “The great injustice would be if we had just carried on acting like clowns. Now we live our lives with respect to the pain we’ve suffered.

“We were just dumb suburban kids who listened to a lot of great music and tried to create a band that made great music. We were challenged for it early on” - and they fought back. “Now, we’re one of the last left standing. We liked a lot of music, and we wanted to celebrate that. Here we are thirty years later, just as excited.

The band has never been about chains, it’s been about freedom. That, to me, is the most successful part of The Smashing Pumpkins, not the fact we proved people wrong.” Corgan agrees. “What we think is important about the band isn’t what most other people think is important.” Well, Billy, don’t leave us hanging.

“The most important thing is that the band has covered a tremendous amount of ground with a high level of integrity. It’s almost unprecedented.”

The Smashing Pumpkins have never been about winning people over or pandering to expectations.

“It doesn’t hurt to do both, [but] that’s not what we’re about. We want to win, but we want to win our own way.” Chamberlin doesn’t know if he’d call making these new albums ambitious. “There’s just a lot to do.

When you’ve got a guy like Corgan, who’s that talented, writing that many good songs, it doesn’t make sense to do anything else but take big swings.

It’s not like we want to take over the world or think we’re going to be back on top.” But the fact they continue to explore the depth and breadth of The Smashing Pumpkins’ unique landscape is reason to celebrate.

“People just assume that because you’ve been around for a while, what you have to say isn’t as important anymore,” says Corgan, who strongly disagrees. “I love the challenge of making music that both my generation and other generations can connect with. Nothing makes me happier than when I see a young fan wanting me to add them on Instagram, but I owe just as much loyalty to people who’ve been with me the whole way. There are a lot of people in their 40s facing their own challenges. They need inspiration, and they want to believe that they have better days ahead. If I didn’t believe that my best was ahead of me, why would we bother even having this conversation?” Corgan asks us.

“Just because some other guy wants to clutch his copy of ‘Siamese Dream’ into his crypt, that’s not for me.”

Like all of us, Billy Corgan has been let down by his favourite bands.

At some point in time, he’s picked up their new album and thought “’God, they didn’t know what the fuck they were doing. They haven’t figured out how to be great in a way that only they can be great’.” The Smashing Pumpkins though, “I think we’ve figured that out. We’ll see if it’s true over time, but we’re not going away quietly. We’re going to make a big noise as long as we can.”

“If any band is capable of breaking the ceiling of what a band can do past a certain point, in terms of cultural relevance and musical dominance, The Smashing Pumpkins would be the band,” says Corgan. “We didn’t start the band to get laid and paid, we started it to be great. Why wouldn’t we want to be great today?” P The Smashing Pumpkins’ album ‘CYR’ is out now.

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THE BEST OF 2020

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THE BEST OF 2020

2020 HAS BEEN A WEIRD YEAR. THAT DOESN’T MEAN IT’S BEEN WITHOUT HIGHLIGHTS, THOUGH. SOME OF OUR FAVOURITE ARTISTS HAVE RELEASED SOME AMAZING RECORDS, SO WE CALLED THEM UP TO CELEBRATE...

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THE BEST OF 2020

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Words: Aleksandra Brzezicka. Photos: Sarah Louise Bennett.

Before 2020 took its toll, highlighting the darkest spots in mindsets of modern societies and their governments, there was someone stockpiling anger - all to let it out in a fire-fuelled metal-pop hybrid. Welcome to the evolved Poppy. The rebel, the revenger and the mastermind behind one of the fiercest albums of the year, ‘I Disagree’. There’s no rest for the wicked, and if you’re gonna play games with the oppressor, play destroy.

“My album came out at the beginning of the year so, it seemed to be an album that one can say predicted the future,” Poppy shares as if the world was subjected to her grander-than-life plan. As the parts of the puzzles were coming together, one by one. Perhaps they are. It’s Poppy, after all. An heiress of a creepy-met-kawaii viral YouTube past.

A bubblegum pop cyborg-princess from the internet. Though she would rather stay on the surface than explain and dig in her heritage, the Poppy spectacle has always been a complex one, in a true Bowiesque fashion. “It’s an artist’s job to continue to reinvent themself with every release and every album,” she reasons.

Now that ‘I Disagree’-era’s Poppy is almost one-year-old, it’s time to evaluate the progress and prepare for an update. “I feel that with the release of the album, it’s been a lot

more growth than just people that like my music and put up with me, and that’s exciting. You can only hope that your music, as an artist, reaches more and more people every time you’re releasing an album. I feel like I did that with ‘I Disagree’.”

Poppy’s joining the dark side was long-awaited by fans as last album’s closing track ‘X’ and EP ‘Choke’, a final release on Mad Decent, foreshadowed her revamped Britney-falls-forManson kind of persona. “I suppose when thinking about the reaction, there was nothing too negative about their [fans’] response. But, you know, sometimes you feel like you need to do what you need to do. Even if they would’ve reacted poorly to it, I would’ve still done it anyway.”

For Poppy, it’s not a matter of popularity but a personal vendetta against everyone in the music industry, and beyond, who’d done her wrong. In the video to ‘I Disagree’ she literally sets on fire an all-white male board of executives. Revenge might’ve tasted sweet, but the world has not stopped from going bad. Had her anger really shaken system then? “I don’t know. One can hope, but I think there’s a lot more burning down and arson that needs to happen before we start rebuilding the world,” she speaks like a true revolutionary, aware of the rotten reality we live in. Poppy blowedup her bubble a while ago and is ready to scream her mind once again.

“There are still a lot of things that

“LIFE’S TOO SHORT TO STICK TO ONE THING” POPPY

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I disagree with, and there probably will be for the rest of my life. At this current moment, what needs to be burned down? There are more corporations that can probably suffer, and we can do without them, and we can still live happy lives.” Just in case it can’t be done, and the end really is nigh, the apocalypse, according to Poppy, doesn’t sound that bad either. It’s rather comforting. “I want it to be very warm and lots of fire and hopefully it will be quick,” she shares.

As a specialist in burning things down and taking fate in one’s own hands, she went on espionage to hell and back - all to tell a story of regaining freedom and identity as a hero in her new graphic novel. “’Poppy’s Inferno’ is the second book in the series of my graphic novels because last year I released ‘Genesis One’, which was also a graphic novel.” “’Poppy’s Inferno’ is thematically similar to ‘I Disagree’ album. Poppy burns things down in the book as well.

She has her sidekick named Pi, the cat,” she elaborates, and talks about the soundtrack for it: “’Music To Scream To’ is a companion album that goes along with ‘Poppy’s Inferno’ and it’s an experimental noise album.” It’s the first one to be written, composed and produced by Poppy only. There’s even an abstract art piece of Pi on the cover. And yes, he’s her real-life pet cat.

Despite the quite drastic change of aesthetics over only two years, Poppy has never really lived just on bubblegum and sugar pop. Her siblings made sure she’d get music education in all flavours, not missing out on heavier stuff. “I was exposed to it early on. I had more of a dance-pop upbringing to some degree. I was a trained dancer for a couple of years when I was younger, so I’ve listened to a lot of music that was like that as well. So, I was exposed to both types,” 38 Upset

she explains and shares some of her assemble of eclectic influences: Nine Inch Nails, Björk, PJ Harvey, Britney Spears and Madonna.

Not limiting herself to any musical style, Poppy laughs at the idea of boxing her into something as simplistic as genres. She has evolved past that. The jokes are on music journalists. “I don’t think my music is nu-metal,” she says and elaborates: “It’s easier for people to put a label on something than trying to understand it off the bat and they’re not okay with being uncomfortable and not knowing what something is. It’s a human thing to try to identify what something is immediately because people are frustrated when they can’t understand it fully.”

She feeds her unstoppable hunger for the new by trying to create something non-understandable, a personification of something beyond imagination and beyond all that was created so far. It sets her apart from the masses and allows constant reinvention. That’s why she struggles to find the same devotion in her contemporaries’ sound.

“Everything currently on the alternative charts, and I mean everything, is not alternative music.

Not really alternative to anything.

Not rebelling against anything. And

“THERE ARE STILL A LOT OF THINGS THAT I DISAGREE WITH” POPPY

it’s really boring. You need to look for alternative music in the underground, which is there and is very present.

I think that what is being called alternative on the billboards is not alternative by any stretch of the imagination. So, you know, if I can make music that is labelled as another term that is not billboard-alternative, that’d be cool. But then again, I don’t agree with many labels that get thrown onto things. I don’t think we don’t even need to use genres. I’m ok without it.”

The novelty that national charts lack, Poppy found in the experimental

Japanese scene and artists like Cornelius or OOIOO. “There’s a band that I’m a big fan of called Midori, also from Japan, and it’s like Japanese hard-core and jazz,” she says proudly of her recent discovery.

Discovery could be a keyword when trying to grasp the essence of who Poppy is, will be, or was yesterday before she shed her skin today again. No matter if it’s the robotic-girl starring in ASMR-like videos, pop idol or dark diva, there’s always another layer to her. Another limit to exceed. “Any boundary I wouldn’t cross? No, I can’t really think of any. I try to maintain an open

mind. Life’s too short to stick to one thing. You gotta do everything that interests you. My biggest fear is having regret when I’m older that I didn’t do get to do xyz thing that I’ve always wanted to do,” she gives a lesson of Poppy philosophy.

Even during quarantine, she kept on trying new things: learned how to ride a motorcycle, wrote some music (“we’ll see what happens and if it comes out”) with Ghostmane, American rapper and Poppy’s fiancé, and worked on a few top-secret projects. One particularly with her fans in mind as Poppy.church website for the most devoted ones has

been closed down. “We actually are working on launching a new Poppy fan experience. That’s exciting. It’s basically for my fans to gather and for me to talk to them and plan different events and have exclusive merch items and some activities.”

Devotees, be patient, your goddess’s descent is upon. Though the wait might be long and you won’t know what’s coming. When asked about her future incarnations, she stays mysterious: “You have to wait and see”. In the meantime, take some consolation in Poppy’s words: “I love you, and I can’t wait until it’s legal to perform music again.” Us too. P Upset 39

Words: Tyler Damara Kelly. Photo: Tom Brooker.

The ‘difficult second album’ is something that weighs heavy on many artists heads, instilling an element of pressure into the fold, and often becoming the definitive artefact that signifies whether or not they are able to ‘make it’. From the perspective of Kadeem France lead vocalist of Liverpool metalcore band Loathe - the creation of ‘I Let It In and It Took Everything’ was more of an exercise in taking risks and pouring out every part of yourself into a project while not succumbing to outside influences.

If anything, the act of shutting themselves away to endure a creative process that took 451 days from start to finish, meant that Loathe were able to produce a truly vital, yet somewhat unexpected magnum opus. Reaching out from the apocalyptic density of their debut album ‘The Cold Sun’ into a soundscape that amorphously touches on their personal lives; ‘I Let It In and It Took Everything’ is an exploration into both the deepest corners of Loathe’s collective mind, as well as the outer boundaries of metal as a genre.

Kadeem notes that while the diversity on the album is fuelled by having driven themselves to the brink of going crazy, the act of tapping into a more expansive side to themselves almost came at a higher cost - not necessarily in terms of doubting the music, but simply wondering if people

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were ready to hear such a difference in their sound. “There was a time when we were writing songs like ‘TwoWay Mirror’, ‘Sad Cartoon’ and ‘Is It Really You?’ and we were thinking about everyone in the scene turning their back on us,” he says earnestly, questioning if they could ever be seen as anything other than a heavy band.

“The response that we had just reconfirmed everything that we believe in, and has opened so many more doors for us as a band because now we don’t have anything to be afraid of in terms of being creative,” he continues. “It can be the downfall of so many bands. You get trapped in the idea of what other people’s ideas are of your band. I didn’t really want that to happen to us because we were running off ‘The Cold Sun’ for so long.”

Where their debut sonically focused on visceral aggression and monolithic riffage akin to the likes of Slipknot and Meshuggah, its followup took on seismic shift where the band leant more into the breadth of post-metal and shoegaze, in a similar vein as Deftones and Jesu, all the while putting more of a focus on their cinematic influences.

“We’ve always written albums as if it’s a movie. Each song is a scene - each scene needs to go into the other as smoothly as possible, and it all needs to feel like one consistent thing. Eric [Bickerstaffe, guitarist and backing vocalist] and Feisal [El-

“NOW WE DON’T HAVE ANYTHING TO BE AFRAID OF IN TERMS OF BEING CREATIVE” KADEEM FRANCE

Khazragi, bassist] just get everything down to a tee when it comes to that.

The flow of an album is so important because it needs to feel like a journey,” Kadeem explains.

It’s easy to see how Loathe takes inspiration from Silent Hill and Twin Peaks – especially focusing on the multiplicity of worlds that exist with the mind of David Lynch – since their own music has the ability to encapsulate a moment as well as evoking a feeling in the listener and providing a means of escapism if necessary. Despite feeling in the recording process that maybe people were not ready for the multitudes contained on the album, Kadeem is confident in their decision to stick to their guns and feels as though they were able to create “an album that

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a lot of Loathe fans needed in these times.”

Where some people turn to music as a method of providing solace from the outside world, others simply use it as a soundtrack to their daily lives. It is undeniable that our regular means of consuming music has been altered during the global pandemic — from a lack of live events and a plethora of postponed releases, to the increase in streaming and social media engagement.

In an age of fake news, misinformation and ignorance surrounding all that we know about

coronavirus and the way that it has disrupted the creative industries, Kadeem jokingly finds himself falling into the conspiracy theorist category when contemplating how the arts may bounce back whenever things begin to subside. “This might be a bold thing to say, but I feel like coronavirus, and everything [else] is just assassination of live music,” he says. “Anything that’s artistic and feeds your soul - it’s not so much being abolished, but there’s no real care for it right now, and I don’t know how or when that’s going to change.”

Despite the uncertainty of the

year to come, Loathe have recently secured a 24-hour rehearsal space and have been spending most of their time being the same prolific creators that they have always been, whilst consuming more new music than ever. “Sometimes we just sit there for hours just showing each other music because we all live quite far away from each other [as a group of people] in a band, so to be there in person and experience new music together is just a different vibe,” Kadeem enthuses.

Reflecting on what it has been like to create an album during a period of isolation, as well as releasing it in similar circumstances, it seems as though Loathe have been given a unique perspective on what could’ve been an entirely different experience.

“I remember when it hit midnight, we were like: ‘oh my god the album’s appearing on Spotify’ and it just didn’t feel real to me at all,” Kadeem says.

It wasn’t until the day after when they played a homecoming show in Liverpool for the album’s release, that it all sunk in and Kadeem had woken up to the reality of Loathe’s journey thus far.

“It almost felt like through the whole process of the album I was in some sort of deep sleep,” he begins, before detailing the humbling experience of being surrounded by friends and family at a venue that his band were headlining on the day of their second album’s release; a venue that he used to go and watch shows at whenever he was home. “I’m just very grateful for the response of it, and where we’re going to go now from this is just beyond – the fact that we can get away with writing songs like this – the sky’s the limit for us now.” P Upset 41

Words: Alexander Bradley

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‘Nothing is True & Everything is Possible’ was the album Enter Shikari put “more time, effort and tears” into according to Rou Reynolds so, naturally, they’ve felt in limbo, unable to gauge the reception to their work thanks to being unable to play live, since its release in April.

The band was always taking the summer off to plan how they’d realise the album live (rehearsals started up again a few months ago) but without “that reality” of performing live, as Rou describes, it doesn’t feel like they’ve released the album yet. Instead, Rou has been writing a book on the themes of the album in a similar vein to the band’s ‘Dear Future Historians’ work, and it is due for release next year. He also penned an open letter to Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak about supporting the UK music industry and started up a mindfulness podcast too. Looking back on the year, Rou talks us through the impact 2020 has had on the band, and the narrative of ‘Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible’.

Having written this album last year, are you surprised how self-fulfilling a lot of the album has become?

I’ve never really had an interest in being a Doomsday prophet or something, but I think the underlying systemic pressures and structures are now so clearly pointing humanity in a direction, that it is quite easy to make at least some subtle predictions about

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what’s gonna happen. But, because it’s one of those things we’ve been talking about, as well as many sane people, until there are actual structural changes, things are just gonna get worse and worse.

So, I think part of me just isn’t surprised anymore that we can write a piece of music that may, on the surface, have a lot of poetic license and be fictionalised or slightly hyperbolic and then it turns out a year later, no, it was none of those things, it was actually just a description of life at the moment. That’s happened a few times, and I think on this album, it’s taken it up to a whole new level.

‘Nothing is True...’ also holds tightly onto optimism too, and that’s important not to forget, but how has your optimism been tested this year?

There’s a massive part of the book which is all about this, how to balance hope and optimism and pessimism and realism and what’s the most healthy way of thinking. For me, it just seems to fluctuate. We’re all so influenced by our environment; if you’re scrolling through my Twitter timeline, with the people I follow, pessimism will bludgeon you around the head. But at the same time, if you concentrate more on the positive aspects of technology and the news stories that are generally interesting, our scientific ingenuity is still spellbinding, it’s still incredible, and there’s much to be optimistic about.

Is mindfulness how you maintain the balance?

I find that really helps me; it still really flummoxes me that it’s not a complete part of our curriculum growing up. To be able to be more in control of your mental health and your mental state and to be able to be more aware of the intricacies of how your mind works.

To be more aware of how rumination works, how anxiety works, how it grips

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“I’M SO SICK OF WHAT’S GOING ON” ROU REYNOLDS

you, how it can take you over.

Mindfulness, for me, it’s like a dog by my side, it’s been my best friend.

It’s been a really helpful tool, and a lot of the feedback from the podcast that I started and things have been really good. I think people have sort of appreciated an introduction to the topic and it’s helped a lot of people, which has been awesome. It’s not for everyone, some people still don’t get

it or can’t be arsed with it or whatever, and that’s fine, it’s just a bit of information there that can help people that feel like it may help them.

There seems to have been a real split this year in people that have been inspired to create music, and those who have felt overwhelmed -where do you fall?

We were still doing all the final touches

on the album in January, but since we mastered the album I certainly haven’t done any writing whatsoever, all the music I’ve done has just been like little livestreams and acoustic stuff. I’m not entirely sure why that is, I think a big part of it is literally just being sort of perplexed by everything and not being able to know where to start, or how to be inspired. I think part of it also was that ‘Nothing is True…’ was such an intense experience, producing it as well as being the writer that I think part of me is just like, ‘I’m done with that style of work for a while’.

Also, I think with the book, it enables me to have that outlet of criticism and social commentary but without relying on equal effort from creativity as well.

I’m able to make these points without having to put it to a beat. In some ways, it’s easier, and of course, you can go into so much more detail, and I think that’s what I’d be more inspired to do, really go into more detail now, because I’m so sick of what’s going on.

I haven’t really felt inspired to write music because you can only go so far with criticism and social commentary in music. I think it can be very powerful emotionally, and you can affect people, and you can explain concepts, dive into philosophies on a sort of surface level, but I think the book has enabled me to go a lot deeper which I feel like I needed to do. I’m not sure when I’m gonna pick up the pencil again, or the guitar or whatever it is, but I suspect it probably won’t be until next year or something. P Upset 43

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Now, hundreds of hours on webcams, meet and greets, a charting album later All Time Low have indeed made the best of a bad situation. With their beaming smiles keeping not only the same positive enlightenment as their melodious and uplifting music, but also giving their fans a way through these darkened days.

‘Wake Up, Sunshine’ was already a beacon to a fresh chapter of All Time Low. It’s an album that amalgamates the pop-punkers past and future, but while this freshly turned page was ready to take the world on, having to adapt to the new circumstances means that “there’s still a lot of anticipation tied to it”, according to frontman Alex Gaskarth.

“What’s so exciting about this record for us is that we’re eight months removed from putting the record out or whatever, and because we haven’t gotten to play any of these [songs] in front of an audience, there’s still this veil that hasn’t been able to be lifted yet.

“It’s just an interesting place to be because usually, you put a record out, and then right now we’d be deep into touring on it, and it would lose

“FINDING THESE NEW WAYS TO CONNECT IS GIVING US PURPOSE” ALEX GASKARTH

that sort of lustre, and the shine of it feeling like new probably wouldn’t be there so much anymore, but it’s kind of holding true.”

There are two factors at play in keeping the good ship All Time Low sailing through these choppy seas one of which is their work ethic. “For us, it’s like why not try to navigate the space, why not try to provide some kind of relief and entertainment joy?”

Adapting to the new way of working, for Alex, came more easily than he anticipated thanks to the project he began with Mark Hoppus back in 2019. “What’s interesting is everything I learned doing my project Simple Creatures with Mark has informed how we’ve gone about doing All Time Low this year.

“Simple Creatures was designed to be agile, and go with the flow, and whatever works, works, and if it doesn’t work, we’ll pivot and move on and do something else. The way that we launched that project has played a big part in informing how we’ve gone about making some decisions for All Time Low, which is

serendipitous in a lot of ways.”

The second facet of All Time Low’s dealing with 2020 has been their fans. As with most, All Time Low have been getting their teeth stuck into the live streaming world, from various acoustic performances to a current set of full-band live shows dubbed the Basement Noise sessions. An integral part of this setup is the ability to meet the band, since All Time Low build that interaction with fans at shows, and have done throughout their career.

“You know at first I thought I was gonna hate it,” Alex starts on the virtual meet and greets. “I thought it was gonna feel really unnatural and strange because we so enjoy meeting our fans face to face and being able to see and connect directly with the people who are listening to our music.

But, the more we’ve done it, the more we’ve embraced it and realise that this is a really cool way to connect with people from all over the world.

“It’s the same with the performances too. At first, I was really thrown by it, and I would get nervous and feel really strange performing that

Words: Steven Loftin. Photos: Sarah Louise Bennett.

Back in March, when All Time Low graced the cover of Upset to coincide with the release of their sixth album ‘Wake Up, Sunshine’, they couldn’t have guessed how different theirs, and everybody else’s, year was going to go.

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way, but as with all things, the more you do it, it just kind of becomes your normal.”

The current new normal for everybody is being faced with this ever-elongating period of selfreflection thanks to isolation. The same is true for Alex, who says it’s “exposed a lot about myself personally”, resulting in a “deep dive on myself.”

“It’s been a big check-in and an overhaul on who I am and where I’m at in life, you know, existentially speaking. I started going to therapy again, there’s just all kinds of things where it’s like ‘well I might as well dive back in and do some fucking work on me while I have the time’. It’s been eye-opening!”

All very heavy stuff befitting a heavy year, but it’s also been a chance to actually spend some time at home for Alex, even if he is still working like a trooper. He’s been getting lost in “Netflix binges and video games”, re-watching The Office and even recently getting back into horseriding.

“That’s been an aspect of my life that I’ve rediscovered which has been super fun,” he laughs. “A lot of people probably don’t know that about me, I kind of grew up as a farm kid, so it’s been fun getting back into that.”

Throughout this year, music has been a comfort blanket to many. Alex knows that it’s music’s seemingly higher power at play keeping some hanging in there, especially since going through these meet and greets, which have gifted fans a respite from the weights of the world for a brief personal spell of time with All Time 46 Upset

“IT’S GIVEN US A CHANCE TO REDEFINE OURSELVES” ALEX GASKARTH

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Low. “One of the big overarching things I see - and not to get too, I guess heady and deep about things - but we’re all going through this troubling year together as a human race,” he says. “I think that finding these new ways to connect is giving us purpose and it’s giving us something to do.”

“Everybody’s really bored and sitting at home and kind of hunkering down, and there’s a lot of loneliness that goes along with that and a lack of human interaction and human connection. These meet and greets and things have been a small way for us to provide a little bit of time outside of your bubble. It’s certainly been

that way for us, it goes both ways.

We’ve definitely come away from all those experiences feeling lighter and happier and better.”

Acknowledging the community that’s surrounded All Time Low over the years “spans generations at this point”, the importance of not just a positive culture, but also the music itself “brings people together,” he says. “It’s an anchor to where you are in the moment, and it can provide a lot of catharsis in trying times. This album for us came in a really good time for the band, and I think it’s coming a good time for people that enjoy this band.”

The future ahead for All Time Low, with the roads still not quite clear, still falls back to being agile and dodging and weaving whatever comes, “taking it a day at a time” and keeping on as they always have.

While it’s easy to dwell on the negatives of a year that’s pretty much served them up on a silver platter, it’s important to consider the positives too, which for All Time Low includes a defining new chapter after nearly two decades as a band.

“The fact that our hand is forced in some ways to do new things, it’s almost been a blessing in disguise because when you’re 15 years into a project you can get set in your ways [but] all of that has been brought into question because a lot of those things we would typically do are off the table.

“Going forward, we’ll probably take a lot of this with us and apply it to whatever we do in the future. It’s given us a chance to redefine ourselves.” P Upset 47

Words: Jessica Goodman. Photos: Sarah Louise Bennett.

“We took a voluntary year off from music,” Will Gould states, “then to have another one stolen from you by a virus?” When Creeper announced the release of their much anticipated second record just ten days into this year, it was met with a flurry of excitement for what lay ahead.

What form would this new material take? What fantastical tale would these songs tell?

What spectacular stage show would we get to see on tour?

Twelve months on, the world was a vastly different place. The events industry is in a period of stasis, but despite this, Creeper have had their most productive year yet.

In the past twelve months, the group have released their second album, a podcast documentary detailing the making of the record, an online point-and-click game telling the story of an angel who fell to earth, and a cover song and playlist series celebrating their inspirations. They’ve played arenas opening for BABYMETAL, held a virtual convention, and graced the covers of magazines (including this one). If that weren’t impressive enough, frontman Will Gould has even found the time to introduce the world to new side project Salem, hold a virtual prom night, release an EP, and play socially distanced

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shows to celebrate Halloween.

“I didn’t realise I was going to go from putting nothing out to making a million things and putting them all out. I wasn’t really imagining that,” he laughs. “The nice takeaway is that despite everything that’s going on, we’ve managed to have a really productive time.” It was a difficult road that brought the band here. The group have openly discussed the struggles with love, loss, and mental health that shaped their newest record, the trials and tribulations that paved the steps of their new direction.

“We’ve talked about it being the Creeper curse,” Will states. “It felt like we were letting an entity out into the world rather than a record.”

It might have felt cursed to the band while they were making it, but from the moment it was released into the world, it’s felt like nothing short of magic. In a year that began

with a performance at the venue where David Bowie broke up with the Spiders From Mars (a concert they previously paid homage to with their own on-stage break-up at KOKO in 2018), the past twelve months also saw the group issuing challenges to former Boyzone star Ronan Keating in the charts.

At the mention of the chart battle, Will starts to cackle. “That was very funny,” he declares. “When we started the band I never thought we’d be in that position.” ‘Sex, Death & The Infinite Void’ saw the group soar to new heights and reach Number 5 in the UK album charts.

“I think it was a real victory for UK rock music,” the frontman enthuses.

“It makes you so happy and so proud that there’s a community of rock music fans out there that are demanding that something really ridiculous like a rock opera be in the charts.”

“THE TOP 5 IS A VICTORY FOR OUR FAN BASE. THAT’S SOMETHING THEY DID, GOING ABOVE AND BEYOND” WILL GOULD

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“People often put that down to you and say it’s your victory, but it’s really not, in my eyes,” he continues. “It’s a victory for our fan base. That’s something they did, going above and beyond.” Creeper have always inspired an ardent dedication in their fans. This year simply presented the opportunity for that dedication to make its mark on the mainstream. “It was a gift from them, really, more than anything else,” Will describes.

“There was no way I could have done that on my own,” he grins. “It’s the sort of thing you can tell your mom about as well, and she can understand that one.”

The dedication the band inspire in their audience doesn’t stop there. Searching the band on any social network shows that Creeper inspire an energy in their fans that feels limitless: fashion, costumes, make-up, jewellery, tattoos, cover songs, art, even custom-made Lego characters – the enthusiasm and creativity is endless. “I like to think that when you listen to the Creeper record, it conjures up an image in your mind that you can see,” Will explains. “You can almost imagine what it’s like to exist in that world and smell that world and feel that world,” he enthuses. “When you see people really responding to it and finding their place in it and believing in it, that’s the biggest gift that you can get,” he earnestly expresses. “In turn, that inspires us too.”

Talking about the passion they see in – and share with – their fans, that enthusiasm is almost impossible to not get caught up in. “It was an amazing feeling, especially to have people get the concept and the themes and give it a shot,” Will comments of the record. With ‘Sex, Death & The 50 Upset

Infinite Void’, there’s certainly plenty to uncover. “I like to think that with the record you have an option to dive in as shallow as you like, or if you want to swan dive in and peel back the layers of the onion, there’s a whole world out there on the record that you can explore.”

Mixed metaphors aside, this is the essence of what makes Creeper, Creeper. “That’s the momentum we try to live by, having a really immersive universe for a lot of

disenfranchised and lost young people to find themselves in,” Will enthuses. Whether they’re weaving a narrative through their songs, building a literal virtual world to step into in the form of a pointand-click game, or something else entirely, imagination has always been a crucial part of the band’s identity.

“Life’s difficult. It can be a very lonely place out there,” the frontman portrays. “People need an escape. People need fantasy.

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“IT CAN BE A VERY LONELY PLACE OUT THERE, PEOPLE NEED AN ESCAPE” WILL GOULD

That’s what I do with Creeper, build fantasy worlds.” After the success they achieved with ‘Sex, Death & The Infinite Void’ this year, it feels like anything might be possible.

“What I love is that it allows me to be even more daring with the next one,” he continues enthusiastically.

“We’ve got these amazing fans that just follow you down the rabbit hole wherever you go now. That’s an amazing feeling.”

There are no hints. No clues. With this band, there never are – at least,

not until a project is fully formed.

“I think with Creeper people have come to learn that they should expect the unexpected, so to speak,” Will grins. What the frontman does offer is the promise of “a lot of interesting plans for the next year” (and another Salem EP to boot, which he reveals is “basically done”).

“It wouldn’t have been us to have taken the safe road,” he conveys. “If it’s not extremely chaotic, it’s really not this band. Everything has to be on fire at all times.” P Upset 51

Words: Ali Shutler.

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Ahead of Stand Atlantic releasing their bold, brilliant second album ‘Pink Elephant’, vocalist Bonnie Fraser’s expectations couldn’t be lower. “I’m super negative, and it’s my downfall,” she says, Zooming from home. “I thought no one was going to care ‘cos no one was buzzing about going to a live show. What is the fucking point of releasing it?”

From the moment they released their debut EP of demos in 2013, Stand Atlantic have been on the road. “When we’re touring, it’s easy to get caught up in the idea that the live show is the only thing that matters,” Bonnie tells us. With a crowd of people singing their words back at them, as well as new countries and bigger venues giving the band a tangible sense of growth, it’s no surprise the band have spent the last few years chasing that

excitement. But with a pandemic putting all that on hold, Bonnie has been reminded that there’s “more to music than just playing shows, you dickhead.”

You can’t really regret releasing an album in the middle of a pandemic, according to Bonnie. “I’d regret not doing it way more.” Not only did it stop the band getting bored of the tracks before they’d even been released, but fans “seemed to appreciate the fact we were releasing stuff during COVID. It was nice to know that we were brightening their days in some kind of way.” Even if the band had to sit and read the comments rather than playing the songs live. “Now though, we’re onto the next thing.”

What that next thing is, is anyone’s guess. Bonnie refuses to give anything away, letting her Zoom background of a legless lizard (which is different to a snake,

“IT WASN’T A HUGE LEAP OF FAITH, BUT WE HAD TO PUSH THE ENVELOPE” BONNIE FRASER

apparently) answer the question in a scaly silence. “We’ve been writing quite a bit. Usually, we’re forced into putting writing in our schedule, so if we hadn’t done any writing, it would be real embarrassing. We’ve been able to play around a lot which is cool. Whether or not we release those tracks is a different matter.”

After ‘Pink Elephant’ challenged every expectation around the band, their future is wide open. “I don’t know if it’s just because we’re pussies, but we don’t want to do something completely different next. We don’t want to go too overboard.”

Debut album ‘Skinny Dipping’ was an emotional pop-punk record that dealt with heartache, confusion and depression with a biting honesty. “It was easy to lump us into a certain scene,” Bonnie says, and all too often, they’d get comparisons to Tonight Alive and Paramore. “Literally, you just have to have tits and be in a band, and you’ll get compared to them. It’s so dumb.” They wanted to break out of the world of pop-punk because, “it just doesn’t really represent the music that we listen to.”

“Pop-punk can definitely be seen as a 40-year-old man reminiscing about his past, but it is a cool genre for the bands that do it right. We all grew up listening to it, and we still dabble in it every now.

We just wanted to make sure we could branch out and not be seen as a one-trick pony.”

‘Pink Elephant’ draws influence from emo rap, punk, pop and arena rock and was the result of the band wanting to show “there are actually no rules. We can incorporate the music that we like into the music that we play. It doesn’t have to tick any boxes.” The Aussie mob want to do “so many things”, and Upset 53

THE BEST OF 2020

‘Pink Elephant’ sees them kicking open countless doors. “I was super nervous because I didn’t know how people were gonna react. It wasn’t a huge leap of faith, it’s not like we made a heavy metal album or anything, but we had to push the envelope. It’s important to remember the world is literally your oyster. I don’t want to be cliché, but it is, so take it by the horns and do what you want.”

Bonnie has always felt like she’s got something to prove to people. “I hate being predictable. I definitely don’t want to be put in a box, I just want to be myself.” There have been countless times where the band have been told they can’t do something because of the sort of band they are but never again.

“Fuck you. We don’t have to do what people expect of us.”

Going beyond the heartbroken misery of ‘Skinny Dipping’, it’s not just the music that’s changed on ‘Pink Elephant’. “I don’t want to just keep writing the same things over and over and over. I want to push the boundaries for myself.” Lyrically the record talks about toxic relationships (‘Blurry’), substance abuse (‘Jurassic Park’) and standing up for yourself (‘Shh!’). “Even if I am shitting myself about being open to the world, I feel like the good that that can do is so much more worthwhile than you not releasing it because you’re scared. I just feel like that’s a bit selfish.” She’s realised, “you don’t have to write about relationships all the time. You don’t have to write about being sad all the time. It takes the pressure off of having to write about every inch of your heart.”

‘Pink Elephant’ is still painfully honest. “We just never want to be generic. We want to make sure all our songs are authentic in some 54 Upset

way, even if I’m singing about wanting to eat someone’s skin” like she does on ‘Evilago’. Elsewhere Bonnie talks about the guilt she felt about feeling depressed when there were so many good things going on in her life (‘Silk & Satin’) and ‘Hate Me (Sometimes)’ sees her wishing she sometimes still felt self-loathing, just ‘cos it would make writing easier. “When you are in the pits, you know that at the very least, you can write about it. But when you’re happy, then you’ve got to really think about all the things you can write about. That new challenge made me fall in love with songwriting again.”

Despite the reaction to ‘Pink Elephant’ and Stand Atlantic finally be able to play the record live with a couple of sitdown socially-distanced shows at Sydney’s Crow Bar, Bonnie’s 2020 has been “fucking shit,” she says. “So much crap has happened, not just in music but in my personal life as well. What else can you say, it’s not been a great year.”

Next year could be better. “We have tours booked, and we have a plan for when certain things are going to be released. But we can’t do anything until we know what the fuck is going on.

We have shit ready, but just like everyone else, we have to wait for now.”

Whatever’s going on with the state of the world,

Stand Atlantic have shown they’re a band who’ll do whatever they want.

“We’ve laid the foundations for us to do something more creative next time around. With 2020, you have the attitude of fuck it, what is more important in life; Is it sticking to your genre or is it doing whatever the fuck you want?” P

THE BEST OF 2020

“WE HAVE SHIT READY, BUT JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE, WE HAVE TO WAIT FOR NOW” BONNIE FRASER

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THE BEST OF 2020

THE BEST OF 2020

“WE FEEL LIKE WE ACCOMPLISHED A HUGE THING” REBA MEYERS

But 2020 has been a year difficult to navigate ordinarily, let alone with any semblance of setting yourself apart. Since being reduced to images on a laptop or TV screen, choices have been limited for all bands, but Code Orange decided to dismantle this pixel-based world to offer a series of shows. The gigs delved deeper into their complex nature - including an acoustic show - and culminated in a Halloween set; an immersive display that the band are still “pretty beat down

from,” laughs vocalist and guitarist Reba Meyers. “But we’re hanging in there trying to get back to it.”

For Code Orange, being stuck together for the best part of the year has been a blessing in disguise. It’s not just their music that has a behemoth weight behind it, even their attitude to the band and their career refuses to relent, which all comes from it being their obsession.

“It kind of feels like we’re made to do this,” Reba says defiantly. “But it’s always challenging because it just takes so much work. I do feel like most bands nowadays, especially in the rock/metal world, aren’t doing it the way that we’re doing it - every day, like basically all day.

“Each one of us does the band every single day, in different facets.

We’re running our merch store, we’re setting up our live shows, or making our visuals, making our music videos, making our merch, writing songs. We’re always running the entire ship, basically, so it’s just how it’s always been, and it’s just evolved, more so lately because there’s nothing else to do.”

Normally being on tour, playing a show is their respite from the day-to-day, and “always the fun part”, but in this new livestream world, “you don’t really get the fun part, except for that little piece where you are playing,” which is “a different level of pressure because it’s a one and done type of thing.”

Words: Steven Loftin.

Code Orange looked set to level the world when they released their critically acclaimed fourth album ‘Underneath’ back in March. A dark, sinister world, and unlike anything to come before it - darting feverishly between glitching electronics and brutal hardcore sounds - it also came with visuals that were a whole new cinematic experience for the band, filled with horrifying ‘mud men’ and Terminator-style creatures.

Upset 57

THE BEST OF 2020

“It’s a lot more work, but I think we were built for it,” she continues.

“We just want it so bad, and we want to prove ourselves, and we feel like we are something special now. The world really doesn’t have anything similar. We have a unique way of treating the band differently - it’s something special whenever all five members of the band are treating it in a serious way that we do.

“It brings out a different kind of obsessive character to it, and I think you can see that in us whenever you watch, especially this last stream, just the way that we perform in a way that it was all put together by us.”

Resources be damned, Code Orange certainly have limitations, but they do their best to kick through with steel-toed boots and snarling faces. “We don’t have the resources to do this,” she gestures to the bigger picture. “We never did, but we found a way to do it - we’ve always been resilient,” Reba says.

“That’s kind of how it goes. We’re just kids from a smaller city who needed to prove ourselves, and in order to do that you have to figure out how to do everything yourself no matter how many no’s you get,” she says.

“We’ve been doing that since we were kids. We’ve been forcing tours to happen, to be on shows since we were like 13 so we just have that mental attitude and stick with that, and now we can do that in the sense of putting on what looks like a Metallica level, giant-scale production with like the smallest budget ever.

“We’ve always wanted to do this stuff, but it’s been too hard, or too expensive, to do so. Now that we’ve actually had time to be home in Pittsburgh and work with our friends here and be with each other 58 Upset

every day, talking about ideas, it’s been possible to bring stuff to life with these streams.”

Code Orange initially planned to play a hometown show to celebrate the release of ‘Underneath’, which looked set to be a defining moment in the band’s career, but getting “thrown into a live stream” meant adapting and with it came the want to be “more than just what other bands are doing with their live streams.”

Taking things further, into more

“THIS IS WHAT WE DO, AND IT’S ENTIRELY ALL OF OUR LIVES” REBA MEYERS

cinematic and performative realms, “even though it was from this time when bands aren’t expected to be able to do much,” rest is not what Code Orange do. With that, they “feel like we accomplished a huge thing; it’s something that’s going to be huge to our career, so I feel good about that.”

Having this wealth of ideas always bouncing between the five of them can come with a downside, which Reba admits she can get “overwhelmed sometimes.”

“Where there’s no break and you just go and you go and you go; as soon as one [thing’s] done you can kind of feel that someone else has an idea, so there’s no time where everyone’s sitting around and kind of doing their own thing and working on their own job - this is what we do, and it’s entirely all of our lives.”

The obsession is also shown in the level of detail the band have delved into across the visuals - from the music videos piecing together a storyline to familiar characters and

immersion of the band themselves, it’s all very horror-sci-fi. Even the ‘unplugged’ session ‘Under The Skin’ pieces together a part of their vision, which, had the world not paused, would never have happened.

“I’m happy that we have all these tools and all these ways we can express our art and ‘Under The Skin’, I was extremely glad to get that out there and show people that we have the underlying song underneath everything that you need in here and kind of showcase that.

“It makes us special that we have these different layers of our band and I think, especially our obsessed fans, know that. They see that.

Those fans have been able to dig deeper into everything, and they’ve been enjoying that. They’ve been trying to help us get that out there to others, too.”

Being the kind of band who refuse to stand still, has that affected the way look back upon ‘Underneath’ now, given it’s been a long year, and Code Orange are a building, not reflecting band?

“I love the album; it’s pretty perfect for what our brains were working at the time. We went through a big lot of big changes in the way that we write. We wrote the album differently than we’ve written the past albums and we’re kind of learning as we went along in terms of figuring out how to basically not get fucked up whenever we were recording it. So I think it came out perfectly, and I still feel that way.

“It still has a real darkness to it that we were able to put out there with visuals, which is how it really should be seen, so I thought about that and yeah so really strongly about I just want people to hear it.” P

Upset 59

Words: Tyler Damara Kelly.

For most musicians in their genesis, there comes the contemplation of amassing a body of work that will someday form their debut album.

Nova Twins, however, bypassed the route of consistent music releases and settled into the DIY path of making a name for themselves as a prolific band on the live circuit. In effect, doing things in a way that worked for them, without having to compromise or take bad advice from anyone around them. aving amassed a cult-like following over their years spent touring, the duo learnt that there was no specific formula to follow - instead, going where the shows took them. It was only as a reaction to rabid fans asking, that they decided it was time to work on an album.

Using an assemblage of pedals to conjure the essence of guttural garage punk while effortlessly touching upon metalcore, electronica and industrial rock, Georgia South and Amy Love tackle pressing subjects such as celebrating your sexuality and shunning sexual harassment, knowing you’re the underdog and fighting harder to be seen, all the while embracing the sleight of hand that is life and playing the cards you’ve been dealt. At its core, ‘Who Are The Girls?’ speaks to the notion of being unapologetically yourself while taking the power back.

When we met with the duo back in January, ahead of the record’s release, they were pyretic with

60 Upset

excitement and ready to showcase the expansion of their sonic palettes.

Where their eponymous debut EP highlighted the punk ethos that they’d cultivated through years of cutting their teeth on stage; their debut album cemented their place as a band who are avant-garde in their neoteric approach to the alternative scene.

Recorded with acclaimed producer Jim Abbiss, the intention throughout was to capture their live sound to its fullest and most organic state so that when they would embark on their European tour a few weeks later, the audience would be assimilated into their world with zero compromises.

Unfortunately, the global pandemic halted their plans just ten days into the tour, and as we catch up with Amy and Georgia nine months later via the COVID-friendly method of Zoom, they reveal that they were blindsided when they found out they’d have to cancel halfway through a string of dates in France; recalling being on their way to the next venue when news hit that the country was entering lockdown and they’d have to rush back to the UK before the Eurotunnel closed.

“I think it’s helped in terms of people paying more attention, politically, to different types of music,” Amy says of how music consumption has changed throughout the global unrest. “Honestly, the Black Lives Matter movement was a massive indicator and a wake-up call to the whole world - including the music industry.”

Nova Twins are band whose entire

history is filled with tales of being the underdogs and fighting to represent a minority in a whitewashed, maledominated industry, as Amy reveals: “We’ve always been advocates because when you’re black, you can’t just turn it off one day. These are real situations that happen everywhere you go.” So, when political activism saw a rise on social media during the BLM movements, they exhausted themselves trying to share their platform with those who wouldn’t normally have a chance to speak out, whilst also championing those who were fearless enough to do so themselves.

“In the end, we realised that we can’t take on the world, but what everyone can do is work in their areas. So, if we’re music, we need to make sure that we are really outspoken, talking about the issues that we come across. Making sure that we’re fighting the good fight for other people who might not have the confidence or courage to speak out

“YOU HAVE TO STAND UP FOR WHAT YOU BELIEVE IN” GEORGIA SOUTH

THE BEST OF 2020

THE BEST OF 2020

about it because of the way they’re going to get judged by friends or family,” Amy explains with valour.

It was an eye-opening time for many in the music industry; witnessing an undercurrent of activism bubbling amongst up-and-coming musicians whilst artists with a much larger platform, who made a name for themselves being outspoken on political matters and equality, stayed silent.

“These people have a responsibility.

When you have an audience, you have to spread good light and love you can’t just go silent. You have to promote good things because you don’t want a racist to come to your show,” says an exasperated Georgia.

“By not saying anything, you’re literally saying anybody’s welcome at my show - if you’re racist, or homophobic, or whatever - but you have to stand up for what you believe in and say: ‘This is not okay our shows’.”

Even with their own deep-rooted connection to the live experience, it was frustrating to see the artists who

THE BLACK LIVES MATTER MOVEMENT WAS A MASSIVE WAKE-UP CALL TO THE WHOLE WORLD INCLUDING THE MUSIC INDUSTRY AMY LOVE

62 Upset

fell silent on the Black Lives Matter movement speaking out for the Save Our Venues campaign. “How can you speak on one thing and not the other? You have to protect your fans, who may be of colour, coming to your shows. You don’t want them having a problem with other people there because there’s just not a clear unity at your shows,” Georgia contemplates, indignantly.

While most artists explored the world of livestream performances during lockdown, as a result of their inability to tour, it was somewhat unfeasible for Nova Twins to pull off. “If you’re a live band wanting an audience to exchange energy with, suddenly it doesn’t feel right. If you’re a singersongwriter, I imagine you’d be in your bedroom on an acoustic guitar and feel really content with singing your songs and soothing yourself in that way, but our music is predominantly made for an audience,” Amy says.

Instead, they captured the attention of their audience by hosting an Instagram Live show called Voices For The Unheard, featuring the likes of Kerrang! Radio Breakfast presenter Sophie K, Noisettes bassist and vocalist Shingai; as well as curating a playlist under the same name that puts the spotlight on POC artists in

alternative genres of music, such as Zhariah, Bob Vylan and Pleasure Venom in order to ensure that “people felt they had options” and were given the opportunity to discover the stories of other people they could relate to.

Signing with FEVER 333 frontman Jason Aalon Butler’s artist collective 333 Wreckords Crew, winning Best Breakthrough Band at the Heavy Music Awards, curating Instagram challenges for their fans and collaborating with the likes of Tsar B and Bring Me The Horizon; Nova Twins have managed to have one hell of a year, and despite only being able to have toured for ten days, it’s safe to say that lockdown hasn’t completely hindered the release of their debut album.

Despite the unfavourable circumstances, Nova Twins have exceeded their own expectations on what they set out to achieve with ‘Who Are The Girls?’ and they are simply happy to have been able to release it to an audience who Amy describes as, “all just great people on the same wavelength,” before throwing in a brazen slip of the tongue for good measure - “you know, no racists in here!” P

THE BEST OF 2020

Everyone loves a list at this time of year.

We’re no different, so here’s a contextfree, matter of fact run-through of our albums of the year.

1.

I DISAGREE 2. CREEPER Sex, Death & The Infinite Void

Lament

3. IDKHOW Razzmatazz

13. LOATHE I Let It In And It Took Everything

4. NOVA TWINS Who Are The Girls?

14. ENTER SHIKARI Nothing Is True

5. RUN THE JEWELS RTJ4

15. THE OBGMS The Ends

6. DEFTONES Ohms 7. PVRIS Use Me 8. CODE ORANGE Underneath 9. STAND ATLANTIC Pink Elephant 10. PALM READER Sleepless 11. GRANDSON Death Of An Optimist 12. TOUCHE AMORE

16. MILK TEETH Milk Teeth 17. THE BETHS Jump Rope Gazers 18. THE CHATS High Risk Behaviour 19. PILLOW QUEENS In Waiting

22. THE 1975 Notes On A Conditional Form

31. DREAM WIFE So When You Gonna

23. PHOEBE BRIDGERS Punisher

32. BIFFY CLYRO A Celebration Of Endings

24. DANCE GAVIN DANCE Afterburner

33. BURY TOMORROW Cannibal

25. YUNGBLUD weird!

34. DREAM NAILS Dream Nails

26. SEAHAVEN Halo Of Hurt 27. ROLLING BLACKOUTS COASTAL FEVER Sideways To New Italy

35. ORCHARDS Lovecore 36. DIET CIG Do You Wonder About Me? 37. KNUCKLE PUCK 20/20

28. BOSTON MANOR Glue

38. IDLES Ultra Mono

20. ALL TIME LOW Wake Up Sunshine

29. TRIVIUM What The Dead Men Say

39. YOURS TRULY Self Care

21. SOCCER MOMMY Color Theory

30. JAMIE LENMAN King Of Clubs

40. DUNE RATS Hurry Up And Wait

Upset 63

Rated_ THE OFFICIAL VERDICT ON EVERYTHING

YUNGBLUD WEIRD!

eeeee YUNGBLUD knows the value of a gang. Transforming by the track into the kind of artist who inspires wide eyed, full hearted belief, he also knows that true belonging doesn’t come from narrow definitions or walled gardens.

Nah. His is a church with the doors flung wide open - a genre-fluid full spectrum of pop, rock and everything in-between.

It might be titled for the outsiders, but the truth behind Dominic Harrison’s second full-length is that, really, we’re all a little ‘weird!’ at heart.

It’s also a record that knows every trick in the 64 Upset

books. Occasionally, in passing, it’ll show the kind of bravado and ambition of My Chemical Romance at the height of their powers.

At others, it has the bratty brashness of the Beastie Boys (‘super dead friends’), or the kind pitch perfect, chart friendly alt-pop that eats up the airwaves (‘cotton candy’). Crucially, it’s never just one of these things at once, though. These switches happen at will, within the space of a single track, often spliced together to create songs that always feel fresh and exciting. That’s the magic of YUNGBLUD for you. There’s something for everyone. Stephen Ackroyd

THE DIRTY NIL FUCK ART

eeeee

‘Fuck Art’ is an album born during lockdown.

With bass and drums barely captured, The Dirty Nil were left in a scramble to record. The band could have tripped at this hurdle, but instead they persevered for a process that vocalist/ guitarist Luke Bentham describes as “the most insane, crazy, ramshackle putting-together of an album that I’ve ever had to do.” And yet, something brilliant was created. Opening track ‘Doomboy’ smashes through your speakers, ‘Ride or Die’ and ‘Hello Jealousy’ are particular standouts, and ‘Elvis ’77’ asks “Question number one; did you have fun?” (Yes. Yes, we did.)

Drawing inspiration from a range of genres, and under immense pressure, The Dirty Nil have produced something distinctly their own. Kelsey McClure

GRANDSON

DEATH OF AN OPTIMIST

eeeee

According to Jordan Benjamin, grandson’s debut album is a juxtaposition. Both an “origin story” and an “obituary” in the same moment, it’s that two-sides-of-a-coin aesthetic that dominates ‘Death of an Optimist’ at all times. A record that manages to bring light to the shadows or find lyrical shade within the brightest optimism, it can be brash, swaggering pop at one moment (like on the grooveridden radio friendly ‘Dirty’) then angry and direct the next (‘Identity’). Crucially, though, it’s never boring.

Instead, it’s a ringleader to its

own madcap circus; an internal dialogue that runs at a hundred miles an hour but talks impeccable sense.

Never standing still long enough to stop the world around it spinning, it’s rock music - but not as we know it. Stephen Ackroyd

I LOVE YOUR LIFESTYLE NO DRIVER

eeeee

Sweden’s I Love Your Lifestyle have been indierock/ emo’s best-kept secret, releasing a slew of spidery, sparkly math-rock-tinged pop-punk singles, EPs and albums to underground acclaim - and ‘No Driver’ should finally break the quintet to a wider audience.

Opener ‘Stupid’ is the joy of I Love Your Lifestyle in microcosm. Guitars, straining at the leash to run riot, zip around in every possible direction, with multiple breathless voices trying valiantly to keep pace. On lead single ‘ShillyShally’ and closing ‘Making Nothing Out of Something’, I Love Your Lifestyle hit the perfect spot between their playful musicality and more considered lyricism. How do you tell stories of significance and weight yet still play music that teeters on the brink of collapse?

Plenty have tried and failed, but I Love Your Lifestyle might have finally found the secret. Rob Mair

PALM READER SLEEPLESS

eeeee

Bands like Palm Reader thrive in a world that centres around live music. In a year

of such turmoil, where their natural home is closed up and shut away, there’s a need to let off some much needed steam. ‘Sleepless’ is much more than that, though.

Developing beyond the boundaries inside which they originally remained, this isn’t a band who want to stick to a singular formula. Instead, they’re a band caught within their own maelstrom - one that’s constantly pushing forwards. Knowing when to push hard and when to leave the space for the impact to be felt, it’s an ebb and flow which only heightens every hit. There’s no better example than closing track and album highlight ‘Both Ends of the Rope’ - the crowning glory for a band who continue to push beyond their own expectations. Dan Harrison

SEAHAVEN HALO OF HURT

eeeee

After years of silence fans of Seahaven feared the worst, but the band have put to rest any rumours of their demise with the release of their third album, ‘Halo of Hurt’ - their first in over half a decade.

Self-produced and signed to a new label, they’re back and better than ever. The record opens with the chill-inducing six-minute track ‘Void’; it’s gorgeously cinematic, and sets the ambience well. In fact, it may be the greatest song the band has put out yet. Each following track is equally as impressive. Kyle Soto’s ghostly vocals float between songs like a spectre.

Spooky lead single ‘Moon’ proved the perfect introduction to this new chapter, while ‘Dandelion’ has stellar instrumentals, with a moody bassline and infectious drumming. ‘Living Hell’ brings a daunting swell of emotion to an already

melancholy record, and ‘Eraser’ is a beautiful closing track. ‘Halo of Hurt’ is a wintery work of art that was well worth the wait.

Kelsey McClure

THE SMASHING PUMPKINS CYR

eeeee

Let’s be honest here, at times over recent years it has been hard to know exactly what The Smashing Pumpkins’ name on a record actually means. Shifting line-up constantly since their lauded glory days, ‘CYR’ is the first full-length since 1999 to feature Billy Corgan, James Iha and Jimmy Chamberlin. With three quarters of their classic line-up restored, it also sees that raw ambition back front-and-centre.

A double-album from a band responsible for one of the defining examples of the art form (the iconic ‘Melon Collie And The Infinite Sadness’), it’s also one that refuses to stick to lazy expectations. Be that through a higher desire to do something different, or an unlikely sense of fun, ‘CYR’ is a record that deals in constantly moving, high definition synth pop. Both deadly serious and yet (surely knowingly) larger than life, it also shows flashes of Corgan at his very best. The chorus hook of ‘Ramona’ could be lifted from the band’s imperial phase, while the album’s title track has the kind of camp swagger of an evil Pet Shop Boys. It’s all the better for it, too. In avoiding a lazy play for the glory days, The Smashing Pumpkins may confuse a few, but they’ll fascinate far, far more. Dan Harrison

EVERYONE HAS THOSE FORMATIVE BANDS AND TRACKS THAT FIRST GOT THEM INTO MUSIC AND HELPED SHAPE THEIR VERY BEING. THIS MONTH, YOURS TRULY TAKE US THROUGH SOME THE SONGS THAT MEANT THE MOST TO THEM DURING THEIR TEENAGE YEARS.

WITH... YOURS TRULY

talent show. Interesting choice, but I loved it.

GUNS N’ ROSES Sweet Child O’ Mine

Lachlan: This song was one of the first songs I learnt on guitar and has stuck with me throughout the years! Slash is a guitar idol for me and someone whose playing I want to achieve.

TONIGHT ALIVE Listening

Lachlan: Tonight Alive was the first time I was introduced to the Australian scene of pop-punk.

Listening is my favourite track from tonight alive because of how much energy it has but also how dynamic the song can be.

SUM 41 In Too Deep SILVERCHAIR Freak

Teddie: This was probably the first “heavy” song I ever remember hearing and fell in love with it instantly. It was just the raw, brutal energy of the riff mixed with and the power behind Daniel johns vocals that got me hooked.

THE AMITY AFFLICTION Open Letter

Teddie: This song and the whole chasing ghosts album 66 Upset

helped me a lot whilst going through a hard time in high school, and I will always hold it close to my heart.

ALL TIME LOW Dear Maria, Count Me In

Mikaila: This was the beginning of pop-punk for me. I found All Time Low and heard that iconic cough opener (haha), and it opened me up to a whole bunch of new music and new bands! We actually have the opportunity to play with

them in the States for Sad Summer (go away, corona) and that feels surreal because I loved them so much in my teens.

Brad: This is one of the first songs I learnt to play on drums, I loved the energy of the chorus, and I always thought the music video was really entertaining.

EVANESCENCE Bring Me To Life

TRIVIUM Kirisute Gomen

Mikaila: I remember being 13 and singing every single Evanescence song staring in the mirror with my microphone and little amp. Amy Lee is a huge inspiration to me, and I sang this song at my high school

Brad: I’d just dipped my toe into metal music, and I fell in love with this band because the drums were nothing I’d ever heard before. I really like this song because of the fast double kick and tom work. P

THE DIRTY NIL

Fuck Art

January 1, 2021 Scan Me!

thedirtynil.com