Snake Magnet, essentially, is a fifty-minute horror show. There’s no other way to put it; it really is fucking terrifying. The album should come with one of those health warnings you get on rollercoasters – “Not for pregnant women or people with heart conditions”. Opener Leather Penny pulls no punches from the off, erupting in grumbling bass and dirty, grimy garage-rock guitar noise that’d make Jack White all kinds of green with envy. Following on is the bafflingly insane Whet Your Knives, diving frantically between Sabbathian riffing and indistinguishable screaming. This assault just doesn’t let up, only dropping the riffs to replace them with droning synths on Good Graphics – a result that is probably what you’d hear if you played your Super Nintendo on dodgy ‘shrooms.

The madness has long buried it’s way into your skull by the time we reach album closer K(l)ong (for me, it was at the Dalek-style screams at the end of Nih that really sealed it). Suddently, it all goes very quiet, shuffling drums over barely-audible bass. It’s almost like the end of a horror chase; seeing the way out of the madness that’s preceded. Right before the end though, they have one last surprise; a truly sudden jolt of the beefiest, noisiest riffing on the whole album, to truly finish you off once and for all.

So it can probably break you mentally, and could probably cause an impacted (or at least heavily loosened) bowel.
Of course, none of these health issues will detract from the fact that Snake Magnet is AMAZING.  The neighbours will think you’ve lost it, your family will probably try and get you sectioned, and you sure as hell won’t get anyone sitting next to you on buses. But then, who cares when insanity sounds so good?  Turn it up and let the madness in.

Recording an album that met those expectations must have been a pretty unenviable task, then: many post rock bands who are fantastic in their own rights can come across as sounding derivative and unoriginal; so much focus placed on those highly scaled guitars that the bottom frequencies suffer as a result. However, the band have clearly taken their time with the record, and have enlisted the help of ex-yourcodenameis:milo man Justin Lockley. The result is an album that is layered and textured, splashes of ambience and piano throughout. And when it kicks in, it really kicks in, heavier guitar parts packing a low-end wallop that other post-rock bands can sorely lack.

Highlights? Well, the whole thing is simply staggering -  every note, every measure of music feels like it’s been picked through, perfected before being committed to record. The delicately crafted opening crescendo of Fractures sets that tone; measured and restrained in it’s build up; all hell breaking loose for the crescendo. Following that, Don’t Go Awash…does something very brave – giving a post-rock song a verse-chorus structure. It pays off in spades, though; those choruses are some of the boldest moments on the album.
The real highlights fall within the second half of the album, in the one-two punch of We Anchor In Hope and You Are Not What You Think You Are. The former is beautiful and swooning, utilising layers of strings to create a slow burning, blissful crescendo. The latter is a ten-minute, heart-wrenching epic; from a slow buildup, in typical post rock style, to huge crescendous passages, via air raid siren guitars and deeply buried layers of sound. The final, breathtaking climax leaves you breathless, speechless, so raw in it’s emotion that it’s hard not to be overcome.

What Codes In The Clouds have crafted is an album for the spring, one full of emotion and power. It’s music for the thaw, to warm the heart after what’s been a mostly disappointing winter in the post-rock scene. At it’s most mellow moments Paper Canyon echoes Explosions In The Sky at their most romantic, and at it’s most dizzying highs it matches the raw, moving power of Mono. An absolutely essential debut from the most exciting young post rock band in Britain, screaming ambition from every ringing chord.

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Brash, vitriolic, and full of energy, Dananananaykroyd burst into the collective mindset thanks to an unforgettable live show and a great set of songs. Their first EP, Sissy Hits, was a raucous half hour that blended hardcore punk and pop.

For their debut, the band teamed up with Lamb Of God producer Machine, and as a result Hey Everyone! is the sound of a band that’s beefed up, tuned up and turned up. The guitars are louder and rawer, the twin-drummer assault is more visceral and Calum Gunn’s lyrics are sung harder than ever. Straight from the off, Hey Everyone! assaults you with Sonic Youth-esque noise before bursting into the bands name being chanted, and the spectacular Watch This!

The older songs have been re-recorded, and sound even better than before – original single Some Dresses features some of the best guitar work on the record, and Pink Sabbath is faster and catchier. However, the best of these older songs is still the mammoth The Greater Than Symbol And The Hash, a five-minute monster which halfway through descends into chaos before emerging with the biggest, meatiest riff on the record. The song is still the most indicative of Dananananaykroyd’s sound, and the newer version is a highlight of the record.

Other highlights include the closing one-two punch of Hey James and Song One Puzzle, both full of hooks and melodies, and another older song, Totally Bone – pumped up, full of punk-rock agression.

It’s too easy to say that this is another contender for Album Of The Year but it’s hard to find any other way to describe it. Save filler track One Chance, every track on Hey Everyone! captures the sound of a band in their stride – confident in what they do, and making no bones about it. It’s stupendous fun to listen to the second, fourth, tenth time, and probably will be all the way through the coming months.

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FOX journalist Roger Friedman reviewed X-Men Origins: Wolverine on his blog, a day after an unfinished copy of the movie found it’s way around Bittorrent websites. Ironically, FOX didn’t take the blog right down, which is odd considering that the film was made by sister company 20th Century Fox (who have been trying their hardest to get the film taken down wherever it’s cropped up).

While Friedman’s case is rather high-profile, it does raise some interesting questions. The man, working for Fox, gave a glowing review to a Fox movie. However, by reviewing a leaked copy, did he condone the piracy, or did he help generate hype for a film which was already generating a lot of news because of the leak?

Fox fired Friedman and other companies may be careful when it comes to hiring him because of this misdeed. But how could this affect lower-profile writers? Take this very blog, for example. I admit that I’ve downloaded leaked albums – it’s too easy to. Anyone with a basic know-how of computers and Google can get a hold of anything they want, one way or another. Bloggers and writers who want to get views can quickly type up some thoughts on a leaked album and get lots of views, and more exposure to employers. Again, for example see the Amesoeurs review.

However, those very employers may think twice about an applicant when they see that they have written about leaked albums and films – and again, it all comes down to condoning this piracy: a magazine can’t be seen to endorse such activity for fear of legal action.  It’s too easy to dwell on the argument as to whether downloading albums is right or wrong – personally, I usually end up picking up albums I enjoy on iTunes anyway, or seeing the bands live, so I don’t see any particular harm. But

The real question is whether reviewing leaks would encourage other people to download it, hence taking a sale away from the artists. It’s easy enough to see how. Why pay for something you just got for free, weeks before it comes out? However, it could be argued that people who visit the obscure corners of the net reading these pages and checking the albums out would be keen to help support artists they really liked, and that these reviews will encourage more sales. I personally feel that a good review, from a respected site, is often convincing enough to make me go and buy an album without even downloading it first.

Will a great review of a leaked copy of a film hurt it’s sales? OF COURSE NOT. It’s X-Men. It’ll make millions of dollars anyway, because few people will care to download a copy of a film where half of the CGI is missing. If anything, it’s been hard to avoid chatter about the film, which will probably attract even more to the box office. At the end of the day, the leak was news. A journalist comments on the news. So, perhaps, he was justified to watch the film? Regardless, he’s been fired, and now other journalists will be staying their tongue when it comes to discussing the matter.

Perhaps when record labels release albums sooner after their completion and film studios tighten up their security, such situations will be avoided. Given a couple of weeks though, most will have forgotten this story, and won’t think twice before downloading that leak.

Grammatics have the potential to be terrible, with their blend of noisy pop and experimental characteristics (bit like Foals, anyone?) that utilises strings and electronics – they’re definitely a marmite band, but it’s hard not to be won over by their tense, dense arrangements – leading single D.I.L.E.M.M.A. is built up on a pounding rythmn section and relentlessly echoing guitars, before exploding in a climax of bombastic strings and synths. The Vague Archive runs throughout with bleeping guitars and pounded piano before dropping into a spaced-out final third. Eschewing the verse-chorus-verse structure throughout the album, often losing some of the choruses altogether, might result in a frustrating listen at first for some people, but when the choruses emerge they are all the more rewarding – Shadow Committee‘s roaring guitar chorus is anthemic as any other band’s best, and the aforementioned tracks both follow in similar fashion.

There are innumeral other great moments on the album, most notably the more accoustic-driven tracks. However, the standout track by far is Relentless Fours, a swirling, schizophrenic tangle of movements, phasing from a blissed out, reflective introduction to a dirty, noisy, climax.

Grammatics’ debut, then, is a surprisingly deep and complex listen – at first it might be a bit much to swallow, but bit by bit it wins you over. It shouldn’t work, for some it probably doesn’t, but it’s a daringly different debut from an exciting young band.

Jeniferever are a band which have never really strayed from their roots – since forming in 1996, they have stayed in their home town of Uppsala, Sweden. And the glacial surroundings the band found themselves in have lent greatly to the band’s sound, a blissful blend of indie rock and ambient, post rock sensibility.

And this, their second full-length album, demonstrates all of the finer points of their sound. Glacial guitars shimmer over slow, shuffling rhythms. Singer Kristofer Jonson’s vocals are brought more to the front than on previous recordings, and in comparison they seem stronger than before. However, hushed and emotive, they retain the same qualities that add so much to the delivery.

Also prominent is more orchestration and layering in the music, from the horn backing to Nanjigala and the prominent strings throughout Concrete And Glass. That’s not to say that the band hide behind it in any way – their own playing stands up perfectly well alone. Standout track The Hourglass is one of the more uptempo numbers, yet is just as melodic as the rest – building up before bursting into a heavy, climactic ending.

Spring Tides is a shimmering, glacial record, full of emotion and soul. Some will be hard pressed, in fact, to find a record equalling the heartfelt honesty portrayed throughout. A must-listen for any discerning fan of post rock.

Spring Tides is out on April 13th via Monotreme records.

Sadly, although somewhat unsurprisingly, the answer is no. The result is the sound of a band which takes themselves far too seriously, falling somewhere between those three genres but never quite reaching the qualities of any of them.

It’s clear that there’s a lot of hard work which has been poured into this album. Each note feels precise and measured, and the production work is marvellous. But the material put to record is, to use a very incisive term, completely mediocre. First of all, we are introduced to the post rock side of the band – opener Gas In Veins arrives with stark, eerie ambience, and over the course of six minutes seems to work to fulfil every post-rock cliche going – it builds and builds, has lots of droning guitars, and it goes quiet in the middle before a big crescendo. I wouldn’t be particularly surprised if they were moments away from adding Godspeed-esque vocal samples…oh, wait, it sort of has those too. Nevermind.

The ‘shoegaze’ portions of the album don’t fare much better. I say ‘shoegaze’ in a very liberal sense – the songs lack many of the nuances of the genre. There’s no real walls of noise, no aggression in the musicianship. The vocals are of an echoey, ethereal nature, but they’re weak at best. Les Ruches Malades is generic, power-chorded rock, while Faux Semblants and the self-titled track sound worryingly similar, echoey plucked guitars over what’s pretty much the same beat. These songs are all remarkably unremarkable. Like someone took an All American Rejects album, got a girl singing French over the top and slapped delay on all the guitars.

And the brief forays into METAL territory proves the least fruitful. Trouble is basically just a Slayer song in French with about half the aggression. For a metal song the guitars sound pretty similar to the rest of the album, just played a bit faster. Then it just becomes one more of those shoegazey songs again. Not much to see here.

All in all, this is an album that some people may well enjoy, but not anyone who puts particularly high stock in the genres that Amesoeurs have been placed in. There’s nothing that matches any of the heights of Reign In Blood, or Loveless. For a band dredging in cliche, it seems fitting that they would agree to break upon this debut’s release – though with such a forgettable set of songs, it’s an end that few people will be particularly bothered about.

How did you guys get together?
I met Liam and Jenny through drinking. Not especially heavy drinking. More social drinking I guess, at a couple of different bars and pubs near where I lived when I first moved to Birmingham. Our guitarist Liam used to be in a band called Clynder Sound which was totally instrumental but as they had broken up, he and our old drummer Mat were looking to do something new. Jenny was already in the band on bass and I just kinda drifted into their practices with no big plans. It was good that way cause it developed naturally. And it allowed us to all figure out how all our different approaches worked best as a whole.
After a year and a bit, just as we were transitioning from writing not very good songs to pretty good songs, Mat left and we were suddenly sans drummer. I think we tried out all of 1 other drummer before Elliott appeared from Sheldon and even though we couldn’t get more than 4 words from him speech-wise to begin with, he was perfect for us drumwise.

Your influences are wide ranging, and you display them quite proudly on your Myspace page. How much do you think they affect your sound as a whole?
We never really sit down and say for example, “lets write a zeppelin type song” but I think that anything you admire or anyone you look up to will have an effect in some way.
And even though i don’t think we sound like The Replacements or Piebald necessarily, who were fronted by 2 of my favourite writers, Paul Westerberg and Travis Shettel respectively, what I’ve taken from them for my role is that if your head starts spitting out words that add up to a song about a girl, a congressman, or a traffic cone, you might as well see where it takes you.

What, in your opinion, was the best gig you’ve ever played?
My personal favourite gig was opening for Tubelord and Tellison in August of 2008 at the Birmingham Bar Academy. There was a nice mix of people who’d seen us before and a load of people who hadn’t but were willing to give us a chance, and I think we took full advantage and ended up having an awesome time. It was tight and relaxed but it went by so damn quick! Plus Tubelord and Tellison were both awesome on and off stage.

You have a new EP out soon…how do you feel you’ve progressed as a band since the last one was released?
It started as an EP but once the whole Stressed Sumo thing came round, we extended it to a 7 track mini-album. Even though we only practice an average of 3 hours a week at the moment cause we all have to work, we make sure that we squeeze everything we can out of those…erm, 60 times 3, oh yeah, 180 minutes. The biggest thing I think is that when we started we just sort of cobbled different pieces together into full songs and rushed em into circulation, whereas now we take our time and try to make each song make total sense to us from beginning to end. And we’re definitely better I think at editing out all the fiddly bits that only exist for self congratulations. Nothing wrong with 5 or 6 minute plus songs, but if your gut is telling you that you can do it in 2 and half minutes, why not. Plus you can always self-congratulate live and do your 10 minute stapler solo then.

Other than the EP, what are your plans as for the next year?
We are doing a video for the first single, “The Great Outdoors” which we’re very nervous about given that we have virtually no history of on-camera performance. Although in a high school production of The Wizard of Oz I was one of the flying monkeys…
Other than that it’s the usual round of getting out there and playing as many decent shows as we can. My personal dream for the next year though is to get the band over to my homeland and play some shows in the States. Even though the audience may only consist of my family and friends, at least I can share with Liam Jenny and Elliott such American traditions as 7-11 nachos, Miller High Life and pool halls that play classic rock.
Kidnapper Bell are releasing their new mini-album through Stressed Sumo records in June. Prior to that, they’re playing some live shows – including a support slot for Amusement Parks On Fire, along with the equally excellent Dials. Hopefully there will actually be a ten minute stapler solo…

March 20 Katy Fitzgeralds,  Stourbridge
April 9 The Dry Bar, Manchester
April 18 1in12 club, Bradford
May 1 The Little Civic (with APOF), Wolverhampton
May 28 The Spirit Bar, Shrewsbury
June 6 The Underground, Ashton-Under-Lyne

Check out their Myspace page here.

Let’s set one thing out straight at the beginning of this review; The Century Of Self is an astounding record. It’s probably the best of the year so far, and there’s no doubt it’ll be at the top of a fair few ‘Best of…’ lists come New Year.

And that’s just what everyone has been hoping for, as the band haven’t had the best of times in recent years – two (apparently) duff records, a split from their record label, and a UK tour where the band themselves admitted they were practically sick of each other.  Without dwelling on the past (though just for the record, I think Worlds Apart and So Divided were pretty good), the band have emerged from that dark period re-energised and reinvigorated.

The result is classic Trail Of Dead - raucous, noisy, life-affirmingly melodic. Yet accompanying this is a newer element, joyous sounding. The choruses are staggeringly huge, full of chanting and sing-a-long moments. The riffs are louder, and the rhythms feel tighter – amazingly, this whole record was recorded completely live. The whole thing stands as a testament to the sheer talent that these individuals have. Far Pavillions is raw and shouty, but out of nowhere fades out into a chanted middle section, building back up to the coda. Isis Unveiled takes this formula to a greater extreme. Hurtling out of a massive, glam rock riff at breakneck pace, the song suddently slows to a juddering, jaunty halt, before building it all back up again.

If the album carried on at such a pace it’d probably be responsible for heart attacks in some listeners, and so luckily the album begins to mellow out across it’s course. Not to say that the resulting numbers aren’t as fantastic as the opening ones – Bells Of Creation is big and bold sounding, chiming piano incessant throughout. Fields Of Coal features the biggest of all the choruses, sounding like something you’d hear huge groups of men chanting in some ale house of old, and Inland Sea is slow and layered.

In fact, the most subtle and oftentimes best surprises on The Century Of Self are saved for the end. Pictures Of An Only child is probably the standout track after a few listens – bold, slow burning to a huge climax. Insatiable One and Two (bookending the colossal Ascending and the instrumental August Theme) are piano-led numbers, soulful and mellow – starting out with a macabre tone, but becoming joyous sounding throughout their course.

All in all, The Century Of Self is a magnificent return to form to the Trail Of Dead so many love. And that’s just what we need. When many of the bands that emerged at the same time as them fade into obscurity on the back of average albums, Conrad Keely and co. have created a real masterpiece – one that takes their previous triumphs and refines it, makes it better in almost every way. It’s bold, brass, and a huge finger up at the music industry that nearly proved their downfall.

This infuriates me somewhat – surely whatever they’ve done before shouldn’t have any bearing on what they do now? Bands can change, right?

Well, not that I’d know. I’ve never listened to The Joshua Tree, and I only recently saw Where The Streets Have No Name on VH1, and aside from that my only real experience of listening to U2 is thinking “why does he sing ‘one, two, three, fourteen’?” upon first hearing Vertigo and then thinking “where the piss is my remote?” upon hearing Stuck In A Moment for the second time. In other words, I don’t really know U2 aside from their singles. Apparently this is some kind of blasphemy, I don’t quite know. ANYWAY. Taking this mindset into account, I figured it’d be easy enough to review No Line On The Horizon with very little in the way of preconceptions or expectations, so let’s get to the doing of that now, okay?

No Line On The Horizon opens up proceedings…and it sounds sort of like an ambient Kings Of Leon? Maybe this is just me, but it’s not entirely what I expected. Eno’s influence seems quite obvious – sweeping synths are way up in the mix, and the whole thing sounds very clean, very precise, very measured. So far, so arena rock.
Magnificent builds and builds before bursting into a fantastic, chiming riff, and driving rythmn. I’m assuming this is U2 in their prime – the song gallops along, bursting with melody and a big chorus. The guitars really really do sound fantastic – the solo in particular, which sounds very Gilmour-esque.
Moment Of Surrender sweeps in via a wave of synthesised melody and beat. It’s cinematic, for sure. There’s organs and handclaps and everything. Don’t see this one being played at any gospel churches though.
Unknown Caller is seen in via more ambience, building atop layers of guitar noodling. Luckily it’s stopped sounding like Kings Of Leon. It’s very arena-rock (there I go using that term again)…but it’s got a wonderfully relaxed feel to it. The guitars really make this track stand out again. I need to learn how to make my guitar sound this ace.
I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight starts, and…oh. This sounds more like what I had in mind – a big chorus, slow burning verses, building up. It’s all well and good, but you can’t help but wish it sounded a little more…raw.
Get On Your Boots, the lead single come in, and finally there’s a hint of the “hardcore riffs” that Bono spoke of prior to the album’s release. The song channels lots of styles, grungey guitars lying below Queen-like vocal melodies in the chorus. It’s been slated, but I actually love this song. The irony in Bono’s lyrics I’ve heard mentioned makes itself incredibly apparent here – “I don’t wanna talk about wars between nations,” he sings. Yeah right.
Stand Up Comedy continues the riffing, the main guitar line is dirty and bluesy. The chorus is big again…but I don’t need to mention that anymore, do I? The lyrics stand out on this track, especially – talk of Napoleon in high heels, and “small men with big ideas”.
Fez – Being Born enters with recycled beats, the “let me hear the sound” refrain from Get On Your Boots making a return. This is really Eno. It’s also incredibly fascinating. This song is by far the stand-out track on the record – the biggest, the boldest, the most expansive sounding.
White As Snow is the first of the inevitable down-tempo numbers. Bono rambles about flat highways and such. It’s nice but it doesn’t really do much.
Breathe, on the other hand, combines all of U2′s great qualities – catchy guitar riffing and Bono’s clever, witty lyrics come together with tinkling pianos and another possible single is born. 
And finally, we come to the end, and you’d be forgiven for expecting an accoustic song. That’s what stadium bands DO, is it not? However, U2 eschew the formula, crafting a dark, broody closer. There’s not even that other trick, where they do the really big sounding ending and such. It’s unexpected and surprising, and very very pleasing.

All in all then, I am surprised. Expecting an album similar to the singles I’d heard, full of big riffs, bigger choruses (though it still has those) and proper sing-along moments, I’m happy to say that what stands before me is an album that fulfils those quotas, but in a fantastically understated manner. There’s just as much to discover on this album, different layers revealling themselves with each listen. It’s the sound of a band who are confident to try new things, and short of a couple of plodding numbers, it’s an overall success, and one that’s more than enough to convince me to delve into their back catalogue.