Band of the Week: Marmozets, McFly and more!

So, we'll kick off this week with Marmozets. Female fronted math rock. Very scrummy. For now, let's have their most recent single, Good Days, which you can download from their BandCamp page. There's also a great video to go with it which I posted HERE.



Then we'll have the pop-rock band McFly. Because I love them. Also, their new single is rather more awesome than their other recent material. So let's have the video to said new single, Love Is Easy.

Next up, this piece of... almost loveliness. It's a track by Neil Finn which is going to be included on the soundtrack to the upcoming film, The Hobbit. I wasn't too sure about it when I first listened, but I think it's growing on me. Have a listen - see what you think.

Finally, a band I found by accident courtesy of the latest episode of the excellent QI. They're called Maxillofacial Death Pyramid. Forgive the slightly weird name, they're actually pretty decent. Let's call it hardcore punk. Probably not quite the right genre, but that's what their Bandcamp says and I suck at genres.


That'll do for this week, I think.

Band of the Week: Marmozets, Hysterical Injury, & more!

Band of the Week time, my lovelies, so let's kick off with Marmozets. If you've not seen my review of their support set for Young Guns, go do that NOW. Anyhoos, really great young band - female fronted math rock. One sec while I find some sort of stream/video. Ah, the video for Lives, that'll do nicely.


MARMOZETS - LIVES from Sam Macintyre on Vimeo.


Moving on, we now have Hysterical Injury. Indie rock? Indie pop? Their Bandcamp tags say grunge and riot grrrl, which I'm not inclined to entirely agree with, but the tone is certainly there. Here's the album Dead Wolf Situation:


Following on from them, let's have Every Time I Die. Scrumptious metalcore/hardcore-ness. Aaaaand, I don't like any of the streams, so let's dig up a video instead. Wanderlust will do, right? I'd have preferred a good live video of The Marvelous Slut, but apparently it doesn't exist...

Next up, a couple of bands I've just found this evening, courtesy of looking up the support acts for The Broken Seas gig next month (you should check them out as well, by the way). So, here's a little bit of Faster Than Robots:

02 Jubilee by fasterthanrobots Followed by a little something from ...Of Diamonds: Weirdo - MP3 Version by ofdiamonds

 That'll do for this week. Check 'em out and pass it on.

Review: Enter Shikari @ Norwich UEA, 5/10/11

Enter Shikari @ Norwich UEA (support from letlive. and Your Demise)

Barely five minutes into letlive.'s opening set and security are already telling their vocalist off for climbing on the speaker stacks. The set got off to a somewhat lacklustre start, given the hype around letlive.'s live act, but a couple of songs in it became clear that this is a band to watch. Loud, energetic and non-stop, they're a perfect opening band so I can only imagine how amazing it would be to see them play a full, headline set. In amongst the high octane tracks was a little gem in the form of “Muther”. Beautiful, melodic and a great track to involve the crowd. I admit to being almost completely unaware of letlive. other than knowing they played some sort of post-hardcore. After tonight's set, however, I'm hooked. Actually, I'm listening to one of their albums as I type this.

While Your Demise certainly matched letlive. in volume and general raucousness, their set felt a little messy. They play hardcore of some description (which I'll admit to not being a huge fan), but while there were a few moments of brilliance, their tracks just didn't have the intensity of letlive.'s. The structure of the set itself also felt slightly stilted – there was a fair bit of talking in between tracks, which isn't a bad thing, but there has to be that balance between talking and playing.

So, after a slightly disappointing set from Your Demise, we moved onto the headliners, the band I really wanted to see. Enter Shikari. Brief introduction needed, methinks. Enter Shikari play post-hardcore, with strong electronic influences (especially dubstep on more recent releases). I've seen them twice before and they're incredibly high energy and very big on crowd involvement. Tonight's show lived up to, even surpassed expectations. With a set taking in tracks from both LPs as well as recent singles Destabilise and Quelle Surprise, there was something to please fans of all their material. The light show was, as always, brilliant although it must suck to be an epileptic Shikari fan – I've not seen them play without strobes yet. Sad to say they didn't play Fanfare For The Concious Man, but having played so many fan favourites and closing with Juggernauts and OK, Time For Plan B, Enter Shikari really are a band that you need to see live to really appreciate.

“We are the world and we are the people and we will be heard.” - Fanfare for the Concious Man - Enter Shikari

Rough setlist for Enter Shikari (not in order)
Destabilise, Mothership, Zzzonked, Hectic, The Jester, No Sssweat, Sssnakepit, Return To Energiser, Sorry You're Not A Winner, Gap In The Fence, No Sleep Tonight, Quelle Surprise.

Encore: Juggernauts, OK Time For Plan B.

Band of the Week: Cancer Bats

I picked Cancer Bats this week largely because I've got Hail Destroyer permanently stuck in my head at the minute. It's an awesome song. Unfortunately it's also one of the few songs I actually know by Cancer Bats. Since I tend to think you can't really love a band if you only know one or two songs, I feel the need to justify why I love Cancer Bats so much. Hmmm...
Reason 1: it's simply amazing music. Kinda, hardcore, punky, metal influenced amazingness. Hail Destroyer is perfect for letting loose at the world for a few minutes. Or an hour or so if you stick it on repeat... which I totally didn't do just to wind my housemate up...

Reason 2: They're even more amazing live. They were main support when I saw Billy Talent last year and it was so totally epic. I wasn't really expecting to like them, given that I'd only just started listening to more post-hardcore, metal and stuff. I checked them out before hand and wasn't over-keen. But dear god, so awesome live. OK, so I couldn't understand a word Liam Cormier was singing/yelling, but the pure energy of the performance was easily enough to make up for that. Plus, I swear he was totally wasted. Drunk Canadian = hilarity. He kept telling the crowd "We're the motherfucking Cancer Bats", doing another song and then saying it again, like he'd forgotten. I was in half a mind to shout back, "yeah, we know, you already told us about 5 times." Amazing gig.

Reason 3: ... I don't think I have a reason 3. Oh, they covered Beastie Boys' Sabotage, that's  pretty good reason. Great cover, plus the video's pretty cool. By cool read: silly.

I give up on finding reasons. Cancer Bats are simply amazing. Seriously, check 'em out and if you ever get the chance to see 'em live, TAKE IT. Think that's all. Check 'em out, tell me what you think and pass it on.ba