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The LaFontaines

Business As Usual

    Unique, Bold & Scottish - The LaFontaines are back with their fourth studio album, Business As Usual.

    Business As Usual sees the band back from a short hiatus to bring you their most personal and vulnerable record yet.

    Having been together since their teens, Kerr Okan (vocals), Jamie Keenan (drums, vocals) and Darren McCaughey (guitars, production) know their audience and have honed their sound to deliver their message in the most direct way possible.

    The bands personality, charm and charisma shines through their output, which coupled with their already unrivaled unique offering has earned them a dedicated, loyal fanbase - who identify with the band through more than just the music.

    Their live shows are their superpower – a guaranteed good time which sees the band connect with their audience on a level that most live acts never achieve. There is no one like The LaFontaines.

    Said frontman, Kerr Okan, “To be a band at this point, 15 years deep, on the verge of releasing our 4th studio album says it all really. To still be going hard at it shows the love we have for the music. To have a fanbase that continues to grow proves we’re not fuckin’ mental, and to have a live show that is genuinely one of the best in Britain, is the reason we keep selling out shows with no industry backing. This record is far from a farewell; it’s a resolute declaration that it’s ‘Business As Usual”.

    TRACK LISTING

    1. Business As Usual
    2. Since You Made A Move
    3. Where They Know My Name
    4. Good Life
    5. Unconditional
    6. Keep Me On The Outside
    7. Schematics (Skit)
    8. Any Day Now
    9. July 11th
    10. Overstayed My Welcome

    Deaf Havana

    The Present Is A Foreign Land

      Despite the impressive legacy Deaf Havana have built for themselves over the past decade, they’ve no interest in trading on past glories. Why would you, when the future is so exciting? They’re aware of the cliché but the siblings believe the new album ‘The Present Is A Foreign Land’ is the best thing they’ve ever made. A record that isn’t afraid of what other people might think, or where it sits in the wider rock scene, the twelve tracks are confident, cathartic and celebratory. Dealing in the expected and the surprising, it’s the album they’ve always wanted to make.

      TRACK LISTING

      1. Pocari Sweat
      2. 19dreams
      3. I Put You Through Hell
      4. Nevermind
      5. On The Wire
      6. Trying/Falling
      7. Someone/Somewhere
      8. Help
      9. The Present Is A Foreign Land
      10. Kids
      11. Going Clear
      12. Remember Me

      Sick Joy

      We're All Gonna F***ing Die

        In tough times, music can be the way through. With an expertise in fuzzy riffs, melodic heaviness, high energy and sharp lyrics, Sick Joy are one of British rock’s most promising young bands.

        Even their start was a challenge to be beaten. Originally formed in Newcastle, the band soon relocated to Brighton in order to be part of a bigger music scene. That is, singer/guitarist Mykl Barton installed a bed in the back of the band’s van and lived and slept in there.

        Quickly, though, the move began to pay off. Their Amateurs EP announced them as something exciting, with some describing them as straddling the melodic genius of The Pixies and the raw energy of Slipknot. Off the back of the EP, the band received huge support from BBC Radio 1, Kerrang! Radio and Radio X. Live, meanwhile, their shows with the likes of Feeder, Dinosaur Pile-Up and Demob Happy fully demonstrated Sick Joy’s infectious vitality and power.

        Now they return with the roaring, fuzzy alt.rock explosion of their debut album, WE'RE ALL GONNA F***ING DIE. With Mykl saying that he can only really write about universal themes (“Everyone knows about love, sex, death, sadness”), despite its title, it’s a record that actually leans into a great deal of joy.

        Speaking of new single, 'i've got more than i need (and i don't have much)', Mykl shares, "It came from a feeling of exasperation towards trying to process some things from my past that I’d been dealing with in damaging ways and realising it. I didn’t have space in my head to be clever or dance around stuff lyrically, it was just emphatically - “this is what this is and I can see it now. Like, fuck, this is heavy and it hurts, but there’s a vein of fighting back flowing through it too”. It’s a flagship of the theme and message that runs through the album, this positive nihilism. It’s a linear story of the whole process I was going through, anger, sadness, doubt, fear and ultimately, hope and empowerment."

        Featuring contributions from Jamie Lenman and Mykl’s own stepdad (lending a touch of harmonica to recent single 'belly aching beast'), 'WE'RE ALL GONNA F***ING DIE', takes life’s gristle and turns it into something uplifting and euphoric. With headline gigs, dates with Dinosaur Pile Up, The Pixies and Pearl Jam and an appearance at 2000 Trees on the calendar, it looks, fittingly, like the start of a happy chapter for Sick Joy.

        “For me, that title’s a positive,” says Mykl. “I realised, ‘it's going to be over one day, man. So do whatever the fuck you're gonna do, and have a good fucking time. And I don't mean just get loaded and be a dick. I mean do the things you want to do. Don't let fear decide where you're going to go. We're all going to fucking die. So get out and fucking kill it, man.”

        TRACK LISTING

        1) Don’t Feel Like Dying
        2) Talking To The Drugs
        3) Stay Numb
        4) Deep Dream
        5) I've Got More Than I Need (and I Don’t Have Much)
        6) Alive On The Inside
        7) The Blood & The Bliss
        8) Rich Hippies
        9) Belly Aching Beast (feat. Jamie Lenman)
        10) Sadisfaction
        11) Nothing Better
        12) Ultimately

        Placebo

        Never Let Me Go

          In September, Placebo resurfaced from a long hibernation to release their first single in five years – and first from the new album - ‘Beautiful James’. A joyous and celebratory song, it came quietly loaded with antagonism for the increasingly prominent, ignorant, factions that have come to litter modern conversation. As Brian Molko commented at the time, “If the song serves to irritate the squares and the uptight, so gleefully be it.”

          As great masters in cataloguing the human condition, Placebo’s unique way of examining both its flaws and beauty finds fertile ground in 2021. Crawling out of the pandemic into a landscape of intolerance, division, tech-saturation and imminent eco-catastrophe, theirs is a voice that has rarely felt more significant to contemporary discourse, and more appropriate to sing these stories to the world. Within the magnetic slow-burn of new track ‘Surrounded By Spies’ no punches are pulled in confronting the erosion of civil liberties, as Brian Molko’s deft lyrical delivery is married to a creeping sense of claustrophobia that fittingly makes the walls feel as though they are closing in from all around.

          Brian Molko comments:

          “I began writing the lyrics when I discovered my neighbors were spying on me on behalf of parties with a nefarious agenda. I then began to ponder the countless ways in which our privacy has been eroded and stolen since the introduction of worldwide CCTV cameras that now employ racist facial recognition technologies; the rise of the internet and the cellphone, which has turned practically every user into a paparazzo and spectators in their own lives, and how we have mostly all offered up personal information to enormous multinationals whose sole intent is to exploit us.

          I used the cut-up technique invented by William S Burroughs and popularized in modern song by David Bowie. It’s a true story told through a lens of paranoia, complete disgust for modern society’s values and the deification of surveillance capitalism. The narrator is at the end of their tether, hopeless and afraid, completely at odds with our newfound progress and the god of money.”

          TRACK LISTING

          1. Forever Chemicals
          2. Beautiful James
          3. Hugz
          4. Happy Birthday In The Sky
          5. The Prodigal
          6. Surrounded By Spies
          7. Try Better Next Time
          8. Sad White Reggae
          9. Twin Demons
          10. Chemtrails
          11. This Is What You Wanted
          12. Went Missing
          13. Fix Yourself

          Band Of Skulls

          Love Is All You Love

            ‘Love Is All You Love’ was recorded in London’s Miloco Studios, The Smoakstack studio in Nashville, and in the Southampton studio of Band Of Skulls founder members’ Russell Marsden (guitar, vocals) and Emma Richardson (bass, vocals). Following the amicable departure of drummer Matt Hayward, Russell and Emma started the writing process for the record in 2017 and quickly accumulated a host of new songs. It was a free and experimental process mixing electronic and live instruments, working quickly, getting ideas down, then moving on.

            Work then switched to The Toyshop studio at Miloco to collaborate with Richard X, known for his innovative production with artists from Pet Shop Boys to Goldfrapp to Sugababes, whose ‘Freak Like Me’ was one of the standout singles of the 2000s. Richard X encouraged Band Of Skulls new spirit of experimentation, pushing the combination of live and electronic as mixing the two was creating interesting dynamics. Once the writing was complete the band decamped to Nashville to record the live element of the record with Eagles Of Death Metal’s Julian Dorio on drums.

            All these elements added a heavy punch and power to ‘Love Is All You Love’, especially on the unrelenting ‘Carnivorous’ and short sharp shock of ‘That’s My Trouble’. ‘Cool Your Battles is more widescreen, while ‘We’re Alive’ has a heavy dance pulse with a touch of melancholy. The song ‘Love Is All You Love’ focuses on the groove and keeps the feel of when they tracked it live in Nashville. This song in particular seems to encapsulate the sentiment of the whole record.

            “This record is tough and tender with a rebellious spirit,” say Emma and Russell. “It is a positive record. It looks to what is possible and how a little love and human kindness can help bring about positive change. We drew on personal experiences, changes in our situation, and couldn’t help but be affected by what has been going on in the world politically, culturally and environmentally. Attempting to overcome that sometimes powerless feeling by creating and connecting with people and making something new.” 


            TRACK LISTING

            1. Carnivorous
            2. That’s My Trouble
            3. Love Is All You Love
            4. Not The Kind Of Nothing
            5. Cool Your Battles
            6. Sound Of You
            7. Thanks A Lot
            8. We’re Alive
            9. Speed Of Light
            10. Gold

            Deluxe CD Bonus Tracks:
            1. In Colours
            2. Heavenly Creatures
            3. Dying Day 


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