** Plus ** Frances Quinlan Cultdreams The Mysterines Vukovi Sløtface Poppy Yonaka Higher Power + loads more
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upsetmagazine.com
Twin Atlantic Against The Current
The best bands from Down Under featuring Dune Rats, The Faim and more!
FEBRUARY 2020 Issue 51
HELLO. When we started work on this issue, focusing on some of our favourite Australian bands making waves around the globe, the country had already been experiencing months of drought - but we had little idea of the tragedy about to strike. Now, as we send this magazine to the printers, our friends Down Under are dealing with devastating fires on an immense scale. So, while we think it’s important to continue to celebrate the talent from such a vital, vibrant nation, we’d also like to draw attention to some ways we can all help. If you want to do something to show support for our Aussie chums, consider donating to one of the many worthy causes you’ll find mentioned online. It’s a small thing, but it makes a difference.
RIOT 4. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE 6. CULTDREAMS 8. FRANCES QUINLAN 10. SYLOSIS 11. YONAKA 12. AGAINST THE CURRENT ABOUT TO BREAK 14. THE MYSTERINES 16. BAMBARA FEATURES 18. DUNE RATS 24. HOCKEY DAD 26. THE FAIM 28. BAD//DREEMS 30. TWIN ATLANTIC 34. SLØTFACE 38. VUKOVI REVIEWS 42. POPPY 43. DUNE RATS 44. SLØTFACE TEENAGE KICKS 46. HIGHER POWER
S tephen
Editor / @stephenackroyd
Upset Editor Stephen Ackroyd Deputy Editor Victoria Sinden Associate Editor Ali Shutler Scribblers Alexander Bradley, Dan Harrison, Dillon Eastoe, Jamie MacMillan, Jasleen Dhindsa, Linsey Teggert, Martyn Young, Paris Fawcett, Rob Mair, Sam Taylor, Steven Loftin, Tyler Damara Kelly Snappers James Adams, Julia Khoroshilov, Katy Cummings, Phoebe Jane Barrett, Sarah Louise Bennett, Tom Healy 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.
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Riot_
THIS MONTH IN ROCK
Frances Quinlan talks her debut solo album under her own name, ‘Likewise’. p.8
EVERYTHING HAPPENING IN ROCK
THEY’RE BACK! Picture this...
Photos: Pooneh Ghana, Kevin Estrada, Mark Beemer
Yep, it happened. Late last year, My Chemical Romance made their big comeback at a special, tiny (for them) LA show. With the costumes cast aside, they let the songs speak for themselves. Expect much more to come in 2020...
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Yonaka smash it live in Brixton to climax a massive year. p.11
Against The Current prove their point as they hit London. p.12
SETLIST I’m Not Okay (I Promise) Thank You for the Venom Give ‘Em Hell, Kid House of Wolves Summertime You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us in Prison Make Room!!!! Our Lady of Sorrows Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na) Sleep Mama I Don’t Love You DESTROYA Teenagers S/C/A/R/E/C/R/ O/W Famous Last Words The Kids From Yesterday ENCORE Vampire Money Helena Welcome to the Black Parade
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It might be on the other side of the planet, but Australia punches big when it comes to its influence on our scene. Over the next few pages, we’ll run through some of their most exciting and interesting exports.
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You’re either with Dune Rats, or you can fuck off. With an attitude like that, and a new album as infectiously awesome as their latest ‘Hurry Up and Wait’, we’ll stick around for the ride, if you don’t mind? Words: Alexander Bradley. Photos: Sarah Louise Bennett.
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P O W Sam McTrusty doesn’t quite know what he’s saying. The Twin Atlantic frontman has been too busy building scaffolding around 30 Upset
himself and his band to dissect what he’s been doing for the last two and a half years. Instead, it’s all driven by an instinct of finding new depths to
plunge. Over the last decade or so Twin Atlantic have been pretty much living the dream - which is also why Sam’s not too sure how he feels about the release of the band’s fifth album. “I’m a strange mixture, in all honesty, part of me doesn’t care,” he laughs. “I’ve put two and a half years of my adult life into learning how to work a studio,
E R Words: Steven Loftin. Photos: Katy Cummings.
and not just writing songs but producing and recording them. Just so much has gone into the making of it that this part of it feels like a bonus.” ‘Power’ is an album that’s a solid foundation of darkly euphoric sounds, the kind that resides deep in the duality that life is a rocky shore, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be filled with youthful lost evenings. Which all, rather handily, became the temple for this new chapter of Twin Atlantic. They’re known for being purveyors of soaring guitar music. Songs that feel just as at home in a grassy field on a hot July evening, as they do in a sweat-dripping club with a hundred bodies compact against each other - now it’s a move into the experimental and toward dance floors. Wanting to bring that authentic feeling to the surface, the template for POWER came from Felix Da Housecat’s ‘Ready 2 Wear’ which Sam “was listening to at fifteen or sixteen or something,” “That’s when Ross and I were first going out to bars or clubs with fake IDs, and it was always the song that was at the end of the night. Or you go back to someone’s house, and we’d always put that song on first. So it’s kind of an aesthetic dark euphoric memory for the two of us,” he recalls through his thick Glaswegian accent. “For some reason that just kind of spoke to me artistically. Maybe it’s got something to do with the backdrop of fucking chaos we’re all living in front of just now you know? It’s a really serious time. And it’s foreboding and worrying, but we’re all still so young, we want to live life and be adventurous and some interesting thing that our generation’s having to juggle.” Sam’s been living in his nostalgic past; in those darkened rooms where all notions of an outside world disappear. It’s where the search for the who’s, what’s, where’s and why’s naturally led. And slightly more notably, as the old saying almost goes, all roads lead to home. Whereas previously they’d
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Sløtface are back with a second album, and this time, they’re figuring out exactly where they belong. Words: Linsey Teggert.
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Words: Jasleen Dhindsa.
It’s been nearly three years since the release of Vukovi’s self-titled debut album, but the band are back with a new record ‘Fall Better’, that’s even more candid and confrontational than the first. “I feel like it’s the end of a really horrible period for us....a lot of stuff has happened,” frontwoman Janine Shilstone admits. “[‘Fall Better’] has always been that end goal to keep us going and to keep us waking up in the morning. It’s closure,” she mentions. Having formed nearly ten years ago, Vukvoi have gone through significant changes to get to the level they are at now. One of the most visible is that in this era of the band they return as a two-piece, which Janine says couldn’t have been more of an amicable decision, and that they remain great friends with the ex-members. Despite the line-up change, they never actually stopped writing music, even if it’s been three years since their last album. That’s a long time when you consider most bands these days churn out singles every couple of months for optimum streaming success, but Vukovi don’t play by the rules, and that’s why they’re so beloved. “We never really stopped writing because we love it, it’s our favourite thing to do. A lot of the material for this album was written not that long after album one. ‘C.L.A.U.D.I.A’ sounds very much like it should be on the first album, but [trap-influenced ballad] ‘White Lies’ was one of the last ones we wrote. You can definitely hear the progression. It’s funny because the songwriting isn’t the hard bit, it’s just everything else around it.” “We’ve honestly already started writing for album three, so for next year, we don’t want to stop again,”
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