Y’reet?
May 2023
By the time a band gets to Enter Shikari’s vintage, they’re supposed to be done with being exciting or pushing the boundaries. And yet probably quite predictably - this lot are nothing of the sort. With a new album that doesn’t just do fizzy, exciting musical backflips - but also does it in a way that challenges the very world around it - this is Enter Shikari at the very top of their game. Back on the cover of Upset this month, there could be no better flag-bearer for modern rock music.
RIOT! 4. Fall Out Boy 8. Understand 12. Jamie Lenman ABOUT TO BREAK 14. Lambrini Girls FEATURES 18. Enter Shikari 26. City and Colour 30. Scowl 34. DRAIN 38. nothing, nowhere. 44. Covet REVIEWS 48. Waterparks TEENAGE KICKS 50. Honey Revenge
Stephen Ackroyd @stephenackroyd Editor
UPSET Editor Stephen Ackroyd Deputy Editor Victoria Sinden Associate Editor Ali Shutler
Scribblers Alexander Bradley, Alex Ingle, Dan Harrison, Dillon Eastoe, Jack Press, Jamie MacMillan, Kelsey McClure, Linsey Teggert, Rob Mair, Sam Taylor, Steven Loftin Snappers Alice Baxley, Bridie Florence, Eli Chavez, Eli Rae, Jamie MacMillan, Jonathan Weiner, Julian Berman, Sarah Louise Bennett, Steve Gullick, Vanessa Heins PUBLISHED FROM WELCOMETOTHEBUNKER.COM PO BOX 420, HASTINGS, TN34 9LZ
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.
THE MONTH IN ROCK
FALL OUT BOY are back! And they’re sounding brilliant.
Words: Ali Shutler.
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→ For the past decade, Fall Out Boy have been one of the few groups repping guitar music on the radio and at the top of festival bills. The band may have had their tongue firmly pressed against their cheek when they called their 2013 comeback record ‘Save Rock And Roll’, but it proved somewhat prophetic. Speaking the afternoon after their intimate show at London’s Heaven, bassist Pete Wentz explains how there was a “fuck it” attitude to their posthiatus material. “People were saying we couldn’t do music like that anymore. So, we just wanted to make anthems. We were trying to make [rock music] undeniable.” And it’s hard to argue with tracks like ‘The Phoenix’, ‘Centuries’ or ‘Champion’. “We did it, and we clawed our way
through, and we figured it out. But we got pretty frustrated doing it,” says Pete. By the time it got to ‘MANIA’ as a whole, Fall Out Boy “weren’t comfortable”. “We were in a place where we were just really frustrated [with the scene],” says Pete before comparing it to 2008’s ‘Folie à Deux’. “They’re both very artistic albums. They’re both fraught. They both come from a frustrated place. The music is all Patrick, so I can say this; there are brilliant ideas on both those records, but then there are unfinished parts as well. I can see why both of those would be somebody’s favourite record.” New album ‘So Much (For) Stardust’ feels different, though. Yes, ‘Love From The Other Side’ and ‘Hold Me Like A Grudge’ bang and throughout the album, there are moments of daring brilliance. But there’s also an intricacy that feels
distinctly like pre-hiatus Fall Out Boy. “We’ve solved the contradictions of the two eras,” grins drummer Andy Hurley. “Now, new contradictions will arise.” Pete goes on to describe their breakout run of albums (‘From Under The Cork Tree’, ‘Infinity On High’ and ‘Folie à Deux’) as one trilogy, while ‘Save Rock And Roll’, ‘American Beauty/ American Psycho’ and ‘MANIA’ is their second trilogy. “That’s terrifying because you’re saying that, and I’m thinking, ‘oh shit, are we starting The Sequel Trilogy with ‘Stardust’,” jokes Patrick Stump, beating Pete to a Star Wars reference. “I hope we stick the landing better.” “I remember when Patrick first played the demo for ‘Love From The Other Side’, and it felt new and old at the same
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A KISS
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TH A FIST ENTER SHIKARI faced a creative block during the pandemic, questioning their purpose as live music was put on hold. Rather than step back, they’ve tackled those feelings head on with their new record, ‘A Kiss For The Whole World’, which captures the energy of their shows and embraces the joy of human connection.
Words: Dillon Eastoe. Photos: Sarah Louise Bennett.
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HOLD ’ve become acquainted with the dead,” Dallas Green cries on the opening line to ‘Hard, Hard Time’ from his latest City and Colour album ‘The Love Still Held Me Near’. Accompanied by a blindingly bright guitar and Stoneschannelling, woozy backing vocals, musically it’s a stark contrast to the heartbreak Dallas is recalling after a brutal few years for him personally. His experience could make for an extremely bleak album. It has every right to be. But it isn’t. The next line rings out: “And the gratitude I owe to them I could never comprehend.” This is an album that has something to live for. “You just have to live with it,” he laughs, aware of both the poetry and irony of the sentiment of “living” with death. But it’s what he has become accustomed to in the last few years. “It’s not singular to you; it’s this thing you have to reckon with,” he continues. “It does make it mildly easier.” Dallas has been living with death for a long time. It’s been with him during every step of his musical career. The teacher that first supported and believed in his music when he was just “a lost little punk skateboard kid” (his words) died shortly after he graduated. In 2010, Dan Achen, who co-produced ‘Bring Me Your Love’, died at 51. Gord Downie, the legendary Canadian rock singer, died in 2017 after a two-year
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CITY AND COLOUR has returned with an album about holding onto the light. Words: Alexander Bradley. Photos: Vanessa Heins.
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Santa Cruz, CA newcomers SCOWL are one of the hottest up-and-coming bands around. Words: Linsey Teggert. Photos: Alice Baxley.
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ROOF With their Epitaph debut, DRAIN are pushing the boundaries of hardcore. Words: Steven Loftin. Photos: Julian Berman, Eli Rae.
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NOTHING, NOWHERE. is looking back to his roots for an evolution in sound. Words: Steven Loftin. Photos: Jonathan Weiner.
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U LEVEL COVET escape into fantasy with their new album ‘catharsis’, and they hope you will too. Words: Jack Press. Photos: Eli Chavez.
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obody wants to hear about a pandemic that imprisoned music for two years. We’ve heard the same old story six-hundred and sixty-six times. But, the artists we love are still getting their lockdown projects out into the wild. For instrumental trio Covet, Covid-19 changed everything. “Excuse my French, but we hauled ass to get that record done,” declares Covet composer-musician mastermind Yvette Young, revisiting a time that painted their 2019 album ‘Technicolor’ in darker shades. “We had all these things lined up for it, and then bam, nothing we worked for matters because the world’s shut down for two years”. Sat backstage at L&M in Toronto before delivering one of her coveted guitar clinics, we find Yvette in a joyously reflective mood. With Covet’s third album ‘Catharsis’ ready for lift-off, she “needed those two years off”. Whereas some of us burrowed ourselves into wormholes, Yvette blossomed by simply having “some time to just work on creative things and acquire new skills.” Two years can feel like forever, but time flies when you’re having fun. And that’s exactly what Yvette found in the mundanity of life in lockdown. It’s where ‘Catharsis’ separates itself from what comes before; it’s sonic evolution even Darwin could admire. Unlike ‘Technicolor’, which “was a difficult time”, Yvette’s “really excited about this new album because it really showcases my guitar evolution; I feel like if I’m just doing the same thing in touring, I don’t get a chance to experiment or do anything different than what I normally do, so two years off let me take a creative breather. I got better at guitar, I honed in on songwriting, and I started learning how to record.” Funnily enough, it wasn’t finding time to flick through her favourite records that drove ‘Catharsis’ creative evolution; it was painting. “The first thing I did when everything shut down was I just started painting; it had been years since I did something creative for leisure.” Like a flame igniting inside her, she came to the conclusion that “when you start equating this creative thing that you cherish and love with purely a way to make money, it poisons your relationship with it”, so she sat down to paint for pure experimentation. Freeing herself from the music
industry’s infinite hamster wheel, she suddenly “wanted to just record for fun”. Whereas ‘Technicolor’ felt like “every single hour of my day mattered, I had to use it to do something productive for the record”, with the world shut down for days on end, she could “make recordings for fun” where “they don’t have to be good, I can record the same thing like six times just to see if I can improve each time.” It wasn’t only musically that Covet benefitted from Yvette’s new-found freedom; it stretches deeper than that. “I feel guilty being stoked on shutting down for two years because a lot of people did struggle, and I don’t want to discount that. However, my personal experience was that of joy.” She found the time to finally heal from the toll life takes as a touring musician. “I needed this so bad to deal with mental health stuff. I feel like I wasn’t really able to deal with much of it because I was so busy on the road, but when things shut down, I finally could heal and work on myself. If you neglect that portion of yourself, you creatively suffer because you’re stifling stuff that wants to come out, so it was a very healing and uplifting and empowering time for me.” In fact, taking the time to heal led to Yvette nearly burning Covet down to the ground, only to raise it like a phoenix and rebuild it with new members - bassist Brandon Dove and drummer Jessica Burdeaux - replacing David Adamiak and Forrest Rice. “I think this has been a big lesson for me and what I needed to do to creatively nurture myself,” she says, her eyes lighting up at her own transformation. “If you’re in a toxic environment, where you feel afraid and stifled, it’s just a shame.” Having self-taught herself guitar after an eating disorder left her hospitalised in high school, music became “the biggest source of my own self-esteem. I’m not the most outspoken; I’m a little more reserved with words, but with music, I can actually express myself, and I feel really fluent in it as a language.” But when the band she’d built from the ground up began suffocating her in every way, it led to some difficult conversations with herself. “For me to suddenly have this thing that means so much to me, that literally saved my life when I was in the hospital, usurped by a situation in which I didn’t feel safe or creatively fulfilled or even just happy, I was like, this is not sustainable, and if I keep going on this way, I’m going to just want to quit,” she says emphatically, empowered by the experience. “So I need to either quit or do something crazy and blow up the whole operation, try to surround myself with people who don’t Upset 45