Time to digest INTERPOL'S - THE ROVER ... Michael's (not so) Mini Post #4

As we disembark the day colloquially known as 'Hump Day' I'm left marginally recovering from the weekend, on a train, finally absorbing some much needed Music Therapy to help settle my thoughts.

It's been a while since Interpol released their eagerly awaited single The Rover, announced an Album tour as well as the track names of their 6th studio album Marauder.

It's taken me a little time to really digest The Rover. Having taken themselves away from a post-production outfit, and focusing more on getting it 100% in 1 take on good old fashioned Magnetic Tapes. (Old fashioned to Gen-Zs/Gen-alpha anyway). No longer retro Vinyl aye? Retro Cassette! 

Got to say The Rover has grown on me! Check it out at bottom of the post.

Anyway, the thought of Magnetic Tape, no post production, fills me with dread and inquisition. Paul vocally is not the strongest, but that makes him unique, live he has been known to off on occasions.
Coupled with the loose creativity and minimal post production we received with their 4th Album ''Interpol" - which had 3 goods songs and a poor reception - I'm left wondering how number 6 will be.

Come and see me and maybe you'll die

But I can keep you in artwork, the fluid kind

That's enough for excitements today

Prostrated faded, it's pay-to-play

Come and see me yeah, maybe you'll try

I've been holding these pyros til they could fly

Open up and enlighten again

Enjoy the skyline, it's an incremental end

None the less, The Rover, offers a taste of 'El Pintor'-esq rifts coupled with a raw productions. With 'El Pintor' being a very good recovery for their 5th Album, I'm hopeful Marauder will land the Creative loose aspirations of 'Interpol' with the excellence of 'El Pintor' mixed with fresh love of their original work on the back of their 15year old TOTBLs tour.

Will we find Interpol provide a mediocre ablum, let say, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino part 2, or will they provide another album I can't turn off.

Either way, tickets bought, which will take it to 4 Interpol gigs this passed year.

"Walk in on your own feet"

Says the rover

"It's my way or they all leave"

Says the rover

The rover

Ca suffit, hell yeah, maybe it's time

You can't stick to the highways, it's suicide

I'm welling up with excitements again

The apex resolves, you need to tell your friends

Anyway here's my ode to the single!

Come and see me, yeah baby, let's cry

Satin face in some worlds we’d be too kind

Nature’s subjected to fires again

Falling for my independence

The Breaks, Waiting for Titor & HoneySpider - Sanctuary, Burnley

It's Saturday, Burnley, and we're waiting on watching The Breaks.
A 5 piece band from Burnley / Manchester. The guys just recently signed a new manager, a  friend of mine Jason Wilkinson (who recommended them to us).

Getting to Sanctuary was pretty easy, as long as you park outside and don't try any of the mutli-story car parks around, which were shut #shouldhavecheckedfirst.
Alistair, the guitarist, supporting a broken wrist from what we will call a 'football incident'.

Soundcheck was delayed and the bands started a little later than expected. That wasn't the only sound hitch of the night, but this is live music, so... fuck it.

Starting out with Waiting for Titor, who we'd listen to a couple of times and like the sound of. These guys are tight 4 piece that we later found out were from Italy and made the travel to play tonight! Mega Kudos.
They reek of Angry Teen Rebellion, taking us back to the Angst of our youth. Which Mr Foxon was there to confirm is still a popular sub-culture today.

The influence from Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode is evident, you can draw similarities with Linkin Park and Poets of The Fall at time's.  These fellas definitely pack a heavy punch live, more than they do on studio recordings. Wish we got more hard energy and head banging metal through on their EP, so I can relive it.

Chuck in some good old head banging and mic swinging, they really kicked the night off!


Over to The Breaks. The 5 lads took to the stage, their front man, and distortion loving lead singer, Niall has an air of early Simon Niel cross Dave Grohl.
The guys sound much better live than comes across on their EPs. With all amps cranked to 11 and a distorted mic - giving them their signature sound, which at times reminds you of an amalgamation of Slipknot & System of a down with James-esq rifts, coupled with Alex Turner / Brian Molko lyrics.

The guys have a raw talent for writing catchy well rounded tunes, with stick in your head hooks and some sweet guitar rifts.

The Distortion is borderline between Good and too much, I can see why the band use it as it as a sweet distinctness, but I could also empathise with critiques from those who want to know, and sing a long to, everyword - sometimes it makes it difficult to follow. Don't let that put you off though, have a little patience and you're really in for a treat.

They even dropped a cover of Drake - One Dance which was pretty epic TBF!

We're going to catch up with the guys a bit more and find out about the meanings of some of their songs, there is a trail of mystery and story running through their tracks which we're eager to understand.


A little disappointed when it came to HoneySpider, on paper and on Spotify they sounded rather good - but the volume was far too high. When the lead singer of a metal hand has his finger in his ears  you know it's not going well, that coupled with a Distorted mic, distortion maybe carried over from the breaks, or maybe intentional, really damped their performance.

At this point we split for the journey home, HoneySpider sounded better from outside and we managed to appreciate them more.

Check out The Breaks over at
https://thebreaks.bandcamp.com

Or listen to the three bands on this playlist



🤘 Michael & Riche

FULL PICTURES AND VIDEOS HERE

http://blog.alifeofmusic.rocks/p/photos-of-waiting-for-titor.html

Riche's Ramble part 2 - on second thoughts

I said heeeeyyyyyyyyyyyyy hooooooooooo

Wow second "weekly ramble"... Ok more like monthly mumble as my timings are all over place 

A lots changed in the past 4 weeks! We now have a "lady" in the ALOMR universe. We welcome Mrs Foxon to the chaos, hopefully you can do what Michael can't and organise us into a gig reviewing, mind blog blowing team.... Or we will just carry on our descent into a Fleetwood Mac madness. I personally love Fleetwood Mac madness but as I said in the intro heeeeyyyyyyyyyyyyy hooooooooooo. 

Ok that's all that's changed but I have to build excitement somehow!

Is Manchester the greatest city in the UK for live music, I personally would like to believe this. Saw a guy the other week playing drums using a tea towel to dampen the snare and a suitcase for a base and that was it. Guess what it was amazing, this guy and his acoustic playing mate rattled off hit after hit, I would tell you what the hits were but I was out with uncle JD and well he was winning the battle of my mind.

Tonight and me and Pinky are off to Burnley to watch 3 bands (not sure my heart will be able to take it) so you never know I may come on next week (month) saying that is the music capital of the UK! A review will be being done and I believe a quick Q&A with the band's.

This week's musical listenings have been of the 3 bands I will be seeing later, the breaks, honey spider and waiting for Titor. Won't go into detail to spoil what comes later but they are 3 bands with big big sound....

Finally in my guilty pleasure corner (this is new - just made it up, probably won't do it again) this is the 11th year since scouting for girls released
She's so lovely and on that bomb shell I feel old!

Anyway enjoy the rest of your weekends guys and if your at any of the many festivals stay safe and rock on |..|,

Xxxxx

Intro To Summer

Good morning boys, girls and extraterrestrials!

I'm Jen and I'm here to bring a woman's perspective to the blog. I, similarly to my colleagues here at ALOMR love music, which I realise is such a non statement as a vast majority of people in this world could say the same, point is I'm really into it!  I listen to pop, pop punk, metal, heavy rock, house music, synth pop, 80s and electronic. A bit of everything really! I love fast-paced, upbeat anthems that ensure you can't be feeling blue.

Today I've made a playlist of those fun, extra summery tunes that are perfect to listen to when enjoying these gorgeous summer days.

Enjoy!

https://open.spotify.com/user/8kmofswi2akbkxq1xm52uefyb/playlist/0IhN45afCgMWKtQVbyc7pl?si=j9lV8YPLTh2kMgDbNVeJsw

I Can't Stand It - Blossoms
Starting off this playlist is one of my favourite summery songs right now and potentially THE song of the summer, the catchy chorus and upbeat vibes makes it a must listen.

Red Flag - Billy Talent
Is it even a summer playlist without this banger of a pop punk tune on it?!
Billy Talent were made for summer, driound, windows down, sunglasses on, music loud!

Home - Nickelback
Now I know it's cool to hate Nickelback these days, however I defy you to listen to this song and not end up tapping your feet and bobbing your head, even singing along by the end. They make a catchy song, try and deny it!

Forget Me Not - Brian Fallon
Lots of pop punk vibes throughout this song from Brian Fallon's new masterpiece, 'Sleepwalkers'

Michael's Mini Post #3

It's been a busy week for me, juggling Manchester and London Festivals in one weekend, work and travel clocking over 1200miles this week, meaning I've neglected my blog posting duties until today. Nevertheless I have tried to share and post what I can on our social media pages
Twitter @ALifeOfMusicRo1
Facebook @alifeofmusicrocks
Instagram @alifeofmusicrocks

Starting where I left off last week. Friday Night;

Dot-To-Dot Festival Manchester
We got down to see Pale Waves at Albert Halls. Then headed over to Aatma to see Fizzy Blood... Where we were surprised to see Turnover. Fizzy Blood had to pull out last minute, but Turnover were very good and filled the place out with many people left outside unable to get in.
We also saw The Nectars and Slydigs. More, Inc Pics over on Chris' post earlier this week: 
http://blog.alifeofmusic.rocks/2018/05/foxons-thoughts-3.html

The following day we caught a train to London to catch Day 2 of GoldenVoice's (Coachellas Organisers) newest festival 
All Points East Festival
In Victoria Park London, APE have taken over a quarter and turned it into Coachella in the UK. They take all of the good bits and also some of bad bits, from their American Festivals.

We went down purely to see The XX. The days other lines ups were OK but nothing major. The support acts from Friday and the following weekend were better, with the likes of The Hunna, Yonaka, Catfish & the Bottleneck and many more. 
Today we had Lorde, Lykke Li, Popcaan, Simpha & The XX. There's plenty more but that's who we saw.

The Festival itself was plagued with complaints of slow enterance queues, security checks, moving 10lanes of people through 1 lane with a sniffer dog. Thankfully we'd got VIP tickets to skip a large portion of the queues.
The queues didn't end there, Toilet and Bar queues were just as long. Again, VIP ticket, worth the extra to save time if you go.

Goldenvoice brought other features from Coachella, starting with lots of American staff and ending with mass capitalism that is "keep them on site and buying from our vendors". They make it as hard as possible to leave, even as far as saying No Re-entry, 1 step further than Coachella!

The festival aside from that's as really good, the setup and sound was as expected from Goldenvoice, alcohol selection seemed very wide and catering for most People. 

THE XX smashed it out the park, with added lighting from a heavy summers thunderstorm, but you hardly noticed that when immersed in song and dance & very drunk.

Oh one further point they didn't seem to sell cigarettes on site.


Aside from that music's been a little quiet, few new albums out this week, and next weekend where off to see The Breaks at The Sanctuary.

M.