One of the first bands announced for next year’s SXSW in Austin, Texas, CHEW LiPS are quite literally a band going places. Signed to the unimaginably hip French electronica label Kitsuné, they seem to be perched right a-top the cutting edge.  At this point one might be imagining the next Crystal Castles; a blaring cacophony incomprehensible to   →

Johnny Foreigner is doing all the things that no-one else will do. In Waited Up ‘Til It Was Light JoFo [as they have been affectionately abbreviated] released one of the best records of 2008 and the best debut from a British band in many a year. Grace And The Bigger Picture still has everything the   →

Old-school hardcore from the Massachusetts crew and touring partners Down to Nothing aimed to decimate a less-than-timid London crowd. Gold Kids from Cagliari, Italy were to set the precedent for the evening’s entertainment.  It was to be all about loud, aggressive hardcore.  Theirs was a mix of the technical incisiveness of Converge and a looser   →

Budding Bristol pop-rockers strive to fill stadiums. It’s too easy to criticise a band that plays with a foot in both rock and pop camps. The age-old adage for music writers is to bear frustration at ‘yet another band that hardly treads new ground’. With a well-trodden and stale genre concern, it is better to   →

Guildford’s family friendly festival; choc full of nostalgia and breaking talent. Friday Ginger has never been so strangely out of place. A mid-afternoon slot in a festival shrouded with nostalgia should have been the perfect setting for the ex-Wildhearts front-man. Sadly, much to his bemusement Ginger’s good time rock n’ roll garnered little response from   →

All Tomorrow’s Parties announce a special 10th birthday festival. ATP will commence their birthday celebrations with a second festival in December.  Taking place from the 11th-13th December at Butlins Resort in Minehead, the event features a plethora of ATP favourites as well as past curators. So far confirmed to play are: Explosions in the Sky   →

Growing concern over revenue streams leads to cull. It is being widely reported that MySpace are to cut its workforce by 30%.  This could mean in the region of 500 redundancies for the company. The news comes amidst growing competition from the likes of Facebook and Twitter, the former of which surpassed MySpace in number   →

What do Beth Ditto and Susan Boyle have in common?  Welcome to Gossip’s ‘tricky’ fourth album. Beth Ditto is fat.  And a lesbian.  When Gossip burst into the mainstream with Soulwax re-mixed ‘Standing In The Way Of Control’ she found herself to be something of a new media-darling.  Journalists delighted in highlighting her obvious and   →

Guilford’s Without Thought peddles that all-too familiar brand of post-hardcore, the style that’s seemingly serving as the model for contemporary rock.  They feature low, heavy riffage adorned by vocals that swerve from screams into more melodic passages, providing the listener with both metallic brutality and a soaring pop-sensibility. In essence the group bridges the gap   →

Last weekend’s White Noise Festival at Leicester’s Firebug venue highlighted an overlooked music scene.  In recent years the city has been known for Kasabian and little else.  Perhaps only My Awesome Compilation and Maybeshewill have garnered a small buzz since something like 2003.  Its other bands have generally stayed under the radar of the mainstream.    →