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Can’ t Swim
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Volume s
DE ’ WAYNE
Me et Me @ The Altar
Delaire the Liar
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Mayday Parade. Yard Act. Boston Manor.
MAMMAMIA!
THE V ERY BEST ALBUM S OF
2021 The 50 album sy hear fr om the ou need to las month t twelve s
DECEMBER 2021 / JANUARY 2022 Issue 72
RIOT 4. BOSTON MANOR 8. SEEYOUSPACECOWBOY 12. CAN’T SWIM 18. WEAKENED FRIENDS 22. LIKE PACIFIC 24. ORCHARDS 26. LAURA MARY CARTER ABOUT TO BREAK 28. DELAIRE THE LIAR FEATURES 30. MANESKIN 38. MAYDAY PARADE 44. YARD ACT 48. VOLUMES 52. THE BEST ALBUMS OF 2021 58. MEET ME @ THE ALTAR
Upset Editor Stephen Ackroyd Deputy Editor Victoria Sinden Associate Editor Ali Shutler Scribblers Alex Bradley, Dan Harrison, Jack Press, Jasleen Dhindsa, Kelsey McClure, Rob Mair, Sam Taylor, Steven Loftin Snappers Adam Parshall, Cal Spicer, Christopher Sherman, James Brown, Jessie Morgan, Jordan Knight, Krissy Marie, Lindsey Byrnes, Nia Garza 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. Bloody hell, eh? We’ve finally made it to the end of 2021? While it might be easy to bid the last year a loud and proud good riddance, there’s been good stuff too. Twelve months of great music, amazing albums and the best bands - in this issue we celebrate the past, present and future of louder music in the best possible way. Most obviously, you’ll find our round-up of what we consider to be fifty of the best albums of 2021. The winner especially is well deserved - someone who is pushing forward rock music without ever being so chained to it he’d need to confine himself to a tiny, genre-labelled box, they’re exactly what we’d expect the future
to be. And if we’re talking about excitement for what comes next, we can’t really avoid this month’s cover stars. Maneskin may not have arrived in what we’d consider a conventional style, but the Italian firebrands are showing just how exciting rock music can still be. Genuine sensations, we’re honoured to have them.
S tephen
Editor / @stephenackroyd
Riot. Desperate Times. Desperate Pleasures. THIS MONTH >>>
EVERYTHING HAPPENING IN ROCK
Back with a new EP - Boston Manor are working off some frustration in the best possible way. Words: Sam Taylor.
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From dark times can come brilliant music. SeeYouSpaceCowboy are getting some cathartic release with their second album, ‘The Romance Of Affliction’ p.8
Always open to sharing the heavy stuff, Can’t Swim are proving honesty is the best policy with their latest. p.12
Life isn’t always easy for DIY bands, but in a world fueled by debt, inequality and a capitalist society which often only serves to preserve inequality, Weakened Friends refuse to quit. p.18
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omantic From dark times can come brillia nt music. SeeYouSpaceCowboy are gettin g some cathartic release with their seco nd album, ‘The Romance Of Affliction’ Words: Sam Taylor. Photos: Krissy Marie.
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he second album from San Diego “sasscore” foursome SeeYouSpaceCowboy documents a dark period for frontwoman Connie Sgarbossa. Saturated in themes of addiction, obsession, finding beauty and redemption, ‘The Romance Of Affliction’ is a struggle through adversity that very nearly culminated in tragedy with a drug overdose not long after they left the studio. “Writing music is cathartic to me,” she explains. “Getting things on paper is the only way I know how to deal with stuff. So to have that happen two weeks later almost backed up why I wrote the album – it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. It reinforced that I wrote the album that I needed to write.” As bold and uncensored as you’d
expect, it’s an exorcism of sorts - and the start of a whole new chapter. Hello Connie! How are you doing? What are you up to today? I am doing okay, currently doing some creative director work for the visual aspects of the band’s release while simultaneously trying to get ready for tour, haha. You’ve got a new album about to land, when did you start putting it together? Were you having to work remotely at the time? We started working on it when we realised that it might be quite a bit until we could tour again around the beginning of the quarantine stuff in April 2020. At the time, we were going through lineup changes, but most of us were living in San Diego, so we did remote but the three of us at the time (me, Ethan, and Taylor) also met up to work things
out or do pre-production for vocals and such. Did you have any specific aims going into it? We wanted to bring back the mentality that kinda drove SYSC in the beginning, which was the idea of just kinda putting every thing that we liked or wanted to hear into a blender and making it work somehow. So we really wanted to bring back the sassy and weirder parts that were absent from our last LP but felt essential to us and also merge them with the more emotional side and melodic as well as pretty aspects we wanted to play around with like clean singing and more atmosphere to create something that was true to the point of SYSC as well as pushing ourselves and
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A change
is as good
as a rest...
Always open to sharing the heavy stuff, Can’t Swim are proving honesty is the best policy with their latest. Words: Steven Loftin. Photos: Nia Garza.
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Chances are, the first thing you heard of Måneskin was when they conquered Europe. One thing’s for certain, though. It won’t be the last. Words: Ali Shutler. Live photos: Frances Beach.
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Mayday Parade may have been there for us during the dark times, but when the world stopped and time was suddenly there to work on something new, frontman Derek Sanders found himself hitting a wall. Eventually, the waters started to flow once more - ending up with a new album that proves that, even when things do fall apart, they can still be put back together again. Words: Alex Bradley. Photos: Jordan Knight.
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Fixer Uppers t-punk ‘stuff’? You’ve Think you’re bored of all this pos s of the north probably just not heard new king Yard Act yet. Sort it out. n. Words: Jack Press. Photos: James Brow
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HAP PY NO W?
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Some bands are happy to keep on making the same album again and again, safe in the knowledge their fans will stick around. With their fourth full-length, Volumes are taking a leap of faith. Words: Steven Loftin. Photos: Lindsey Byrnes.
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