See how I was scared about 2017 because most of my favourite bands had released new albums in 2016 and I didn't know who would be here for me this year? Be still, my little heart. There's plenty of new music for me to dig my teeth in.

ALBUMS & EPs

After finishing the Asymmetry era on a high, we all knew Mallory Knox had the ability to make a big, ambitious rock record to match their big plans. Well, they’ve just gone and done it, and at the same time, they topped every expectation I could have possibly had. Wired might just be the Cambridge boys' best record, and I have no doubt that it’ll become my favourite anytime soon. It’s got everything I love about Mallory Knox’s music. It’s got ginormous choruses I cannot wait to lose my voice to in festival fields and packed venues. It’s got the perfect harmony of Mikey Chapman’s and Sam Douglas’ voices. It’s got a pure, unfaltering energy, from start to finish. It’s also got so much more than that. It’s got riffs all over the place, and let me tell you, Giving It Up into California into Wired is one hell of a way to start a record. Wired is urgent and fast paced, it’s all killer and absolutely no filler - and it’s not just your average big sounding rock record either. It’s got groovier vibes (For You, Come Back Around) that remind me of Oasis at times. The lyrics are more sensitive, more personal, even. Better Off Without You (Citalopram), dealing with bassist Sam Douglas’ anxiety, has to be one of Mallory Knox’s best songs while being one of the most truthful and honest. Wired is the record I wanted Mallory Knox to make without even knowing it.

Today, they’ve been announced as Thursday headliners for 2000 Trees, and recently, they have been added to two major tours (Simple Plan’s fifteenth anniversary tour for No Pads, No Helmets… Just Balls and Enter Shikari’s European stint for the ten year anniversary of Take to the Skies), and I can just feel that Wired is the record that’s going to take these boys to the next level.

Before this, I had just heard of Can’t Swim - mostly because they will be touring Europe alongside Real Friends in April, and only in good terms. The release of their first full length, Fail You Again, in March, seemed like a good reason to finally give a listen to their music. From the get go, I find Fail You Again catchy and energetic, and Christ, I absolutely adore Chris LoPorto’s voice. At times soft and at others gritty, it is unique and stunning. Fail You Again feels like the calm and the storm all at once, with songs that are explosive (All the Moves We Make Are in the Dark, We Won’t Sleep) and others softer and more delicate (Quitting), but it’s Stranger that wins it all and embodies that feeling all at once, starting off slowly only to hit you hard in the chorus. The lyrics deal with the loss of someone (Friend, Molly’s Desk), of oneself and are a journey to find yourself, it seems. Fail You Again is a wonderful début album, and on this one, I’m glad I trusted everyone around me.

Another début album has been given to the world in 2017, courtesy of London based Counterfeit. The band has been making waves recently, and it’s safe to say their first full length, Together We Are Stronger, had been long awaited. It’s one record that does not disappoint. From start to finish, there is no dull time, and every song is energetic, catchy, very in your face and yet, it’s more than that. The best explanation for that is the stunning Lost Everything, grand and soaring all throughout… and rendered unique by the mix of strings and vocalist Jamie Campbell-Bower’s screams. Together We Are Stronger is a record full of urgency, the songs are short and fast paced and it feels like a bomb exploding in your face with every track, every beat of the drums, every riff, every word. It’s an album that manages to surprise you one last time by closing with its slowest, most delicate song, the beautiful Letters to the Lost. Let me tell you, Together We Are Stronger is one great album and most importantly, one I want to hear performed live.

One of the albums I was most excited to hear this year was Sorority Noise's You're Not As ____ As You Think, and I have not been disappointed. Songs about death, guilt, mental health and a friend's suicide. On paper, it sounds very bleak, doesn't it? And yet it's a record that is infinitely comforting, and full of light. It's the way I have always felt about Sorority Noise. Every time I've seen them live, it's how I felt - like something had exploded all around me and for a short amount of time, I wasn't alone, and someone got it. This is how You're Not As ____ As You Think feels, too. It's beautiful and sensitive, positive and honest, and I am extremely grateful we have a band like them to deal with mental health issues in such an honest way. Depression isn't pretty, anxiety isn't just being awkward. Mental health issues are ugly and uncomfortable, and a song like Disappeared depicts it in such a truthful way it hurts and yet, it makes you feel less alone. You're Not As _____ As You Think is an open window into frontman Cameron Boucher's mind, and it's one we desperately needed if we intend on breaking that stigma and make mental health issues valid.


On the 24th of March, I woke up to Northlane pulling a Beyoncé and dropping their fourth full length, Mesmer, as a surprise. And what a brilliant surprise it is indeed. It's catchy all the way through and yet it is technical. It is very atmospheric and yet heavy at times. Vocalist Marcus Bridge has one of the most wonderful voices I've ever heard and his cleans are heaven to my ears. It seems Northlane have found the perfect balance between all the elements I love in metal, blended them together and made the one hell of an album with it all. The lyrics, whether they are about the way we relate to our planet (Solar) or the loss of a loved one are clever and beautiful, and the more personal songs (Heartmachine, Fade, Veridian) are written in a way that can speak to everyone, they're made relatable without being a cliché. It's no secret that Northlane's history has heavily been influenced by Architects, and it's no surprise they would write the late Tom Searle a tribute, and it comes in the form of closer Paragon, an absolutely stunning piece of music that absolutely broke my heart. Overall, there's a positive energy in that record, a sense of wanting to change things but in a very peaceful way. There's something so organic and pure about Northlane that I am loving more and more every day.


Coast To Coast's The Length of a Smile is the best surprise I've had in 2017, in the way that I don't know what I was expecting, but everything has been blown out of the water. This is an incredible EP, full of nostalgia, and Coast To Coast are a band with a wonderful sound. You can hear the pop punk roots, sometimes, but to me, in sound, they're closer to a band like Deaf Havana and no, it's also not Deaf Havana meets pop punk either. It's something that I can't quite describe, that has taken me by surprise and that I have a lot of love and time for.

I used to really, really like Ed Sheeran. I heard You Need Me, I Don’t Need You on the radio, once, before + was released, and I fell for it, hard and headfirst. I saw him live following this, I even met him. And then Don’t happened and I jumped off the bandwagon. Sheeran just released is long awaited third album, Divide, and it’s not the album that is going to make me jump back on the bandwagon. The singles are alright, and there are some good tunes here and there, but it doesn’t really do anything for me anymore. I’ve got to a point where I would probably singalong and not change the channel/station if he came on the radio/TV, but that’s about it. I can’t say Divide is a bad album, it’s alright, not album of the year but not bottom of the industrial sized bin either, but… some lyrics are downright embarrassing, though. In Shape of You, Ed and the girl he has his eye on (whom he probably met in the eighties seeing as a jukebox was involved) go to an all you can eat buffet and, well, they’re “thrifty” so she fills her handbag with food. And they say romance is dead.


So, I've listened to Creeper's Eternity, In Your Arms. And I can't say it's a bad album, because it clearly is not. It's dramatic and vivid, it's cleverly written and it's technically impeccable. You could totally make a musical out of it, complete with dance numbers, and knowing my love for musicals and dance numbers that is a compliment of the highest form coming from me. But apart from the objective, I think I just don't get it? I have no idea what just happened to me. Maybe I'll get it sometime.

MY NEW FAVOURITE ACTS

We'll start with something that is, indeed, all new. Sainte is born from the ashes of We Are The In Crowd, and it's basically WATIC's vocalist Tay Jardine's new musical project. It's absolutely everything I adore in pop music, it’s catchy and and it makes you want to dance in your living room. The music videos are brightly coloured and pop arty and they fill my heart with joy and cater to my love of colour block and brightly coloured make up. Sainte have only released two songs as we speak, Technicolor and, more recently, With or Without Me, and I cannot wait for more music.

The best thing about attending a lot of shows on the same tour can be support bands - outside of seeing your band of choice several times, that is. Going to five shows out of With Confidence's Better Weather tour brought Canadian outfit Safe To Say in my life. They quickly moved on from "the band I'd love to see in Brighton because they'd fit in so perfectly there" to "the band I cannot get enough of" - only me to go see a band for their sugary sweet tunes and to leave a fan of the emo, alt-rock, darker support. I cannot recommend Safe To Say enough if you're a fan of having your heart ripped out of your chest because feelings.

THE PLAYLIST

This month’s playlist includes :

After my brief stint in the UK to see With Confidence, the plan was to patiently wait two weeks until my local date, Paris, on the 16th of March. 

That’s adorable of me to have thought I would make it two weeks when there was a full European tour available for me to check out, and here I went on an impromptu trip to Berlin and Leipzig, yes in actual Germany, to see this lot again. It was a good occasion for me to check out the state of the scene in a different country (which is something I rarely do, I usually stick to the UK and France because a) it feels safe and b) I speak the language), and see how the tour dynamic was without the Americans of Broadside, who were only scheduled to play on the UK leg of the tour and went back home as the others headed towards the old continent, leaving me with the memory of one of the most phenomenal key changes I've ever heard.

Neither Berlin nor Paris had a local band (Paris with no local band, shocking, am I right) but Leipzig did, in the form of pop punks Storyteller. I haven’t understood a single word the lead singer said as my German is abysmal (but according to a German citizen, “Ich liebe Kartoffelsalat” (“I love potato salad”) is all you need), apart from “With Confidence” and “fanboy” chucked in the same sentence, so I take it they were, as a unit, fanboying a little bit over the idea of playing alongside With Confidence. Music wise, they were alright, they sounded a lot like As It Is, if that gives you an idea - very bouncy, catchy and sunny.

I sadly missed a big chunk of Milestones in Berlin, as I got lost walking around in circles outside the S-Bahn station, but I was there bright and early for their Leipzig and Paris sets. I repeat what I have previously said : do not sleep on them. They’re not just lovely and catchy as hell, they’re also insanely talented. I found myself noticing how strong and impressive frontman Matt Clarke’s vocals are, and both performances were on the brilliant side of things. In Paris, they even had a little group of fans singing along to A Shot in the Dark or Call Me Disaster, and I’m pretty sure they will be a success when they hit our shores again in June, alongside Simple Plan. I cannot wait.

Safe To Say have been fully growing on me since the UK shows - it might be that I have actually taken the time to sit down and listen to their most recent album, Down in the Dark, and it might also be because the sound quality in all three European venues (Musik & Frieden in Berlin, Felsenkeller in Leipzig and Espace B in Paris) was so, so much better than in the UK, which made their performance bigger, and their music take a whole other dimension - it's catchy yet atmospheric, and I'm always on board with that kind of vibe. I still wish frontman Brad Garcia would stop apologising for not being a pop punk band - I promise, you’re still incredible, no one cares what genre your music is. The wait until they find their way back to Europe will be long. Very long. (In the meantime, if Only Rain could get the hell out of my brain, that would be lovely, please and thank you)

And then it was time for With Confidence.

The mainland crowds were different, and the venues weren’t exactly sold out everywhere. Berlin was reasonably full, but I could only count up to, say, fifty people in Leipzig. In Paris, according to drummer Josh Brozzesi, the band had only sold about thirty tickets until a couple of days before the show, and we ended up being, roughly, a hundred. A hundred VERY loud people, though, who sang along from start to finish and made it sound like there was five hundred of us in there. Apart from a tiny, shy one in Berlin, you couldn’t find the moshpits the UK had seen, let alone the crowdsurfers, but everyone was into it, and at the end of the day, what matters is that everyone has fun, not how you do it. It's okay to just have a little boogie or an angry finger point, too. On stage, all I see is a band who thrives in tiny venues, and, to be fair, whatever the size of the venue, whatever the amount of people in it, With Confidence are a band who gives their all. Some bands would get pissed off and play a half-arsed show because there’s only ten people in front of them. Not With Confidence. They always give a hundred percent, it seems.

Remember how, in the recap of the Leeds and Manchester shows, I'd said that if it wasn't for them reminding the crowd, I wouldn't have noticed that frontman Jayden Seeley was sick? Now he wasn't anymore, and, weirdly enough, I noticed. In the UK, I thought he sounded incredible, so what's above that?

Higher absolutely floored me all three nights - it seems I make a point of crying at songs that just aren’t sad. At all. The ending, more intimate, with just Seeley and his bass, asking the crowd to join in, absolutely destroyed me. Granted, nostalgia kicked in and I spent a good chunk of the Paris show wiping tears from the corners of my eyes, but, you know. There’s always space to celebrate such a lovely moment.

Paris was probably my favourite show of the whole tour, if I’m honest. Up until the beginning of Milestones, I was scared - was ending my stint on the Better Weather tour at home the best choice? Well yes, it was, thank you for asking. First, I got to make friends and enjoy the evening with some of my best friends, which is always a plus. I also had the absolute pleasure of sharing the evening with a beautiful, brilliant crowd, who showed this band a whole lot of love - I think they were impressed, and guitarist Luke Rockets wouldn’t stop thanking the crowd and saying how crazy it all was.

I wish I had more words than that, but I’m still coming to terms with the fact that my next With Con show is the Set It Off tour, and then Slam Dunk, in two months. One day I’ll learn. One day I’ll know that the comedown after several shows off the same tour is always a bit painful for someone prone to nostalgia like myself. The thing is, it was all worth it. Five shows, three different countries, 4384 kilometres, four awesome bands, one conversation about camembert. It doesn’t really get any better than this.

Tuesday and Wednesday marked my first endeavours on British soil in 2017, and I couldn't have picked a better band than With Confidence and better cities than Leeds and Manchester to do it. I'm currently in London, waiting for my coach home, and I'd trade places with anyone in Glasgow for another night with my new favourite Australian band.

Both nights, the evening is opened by the only English band on the line-up, Milestones. I had discovered them at Mildtfest, last summer, and had been impressed by their catchy songs and all the emo that was lying around in there. I can now officially say I am in there for the long haul. Both days, their set has been solid and an easy explanation as to why they are on every single tour you can think of until the summer (they are embarking on Mayday Parade's 10 year anniversary tour for A Lesson in Romantics at the end of this, and then, they'll be traipsing around Europe alongside Simple Plan). They have a fair amount of fans in the crowd (especially in Leeds, overall one of the best crowds I've shared a gig with) and singalongs are easily heard. If I were you, I wouldn't sleep on Milestones. At all. That band is going to blow up.

Coming straight from Ontario, Canada is Safe To Say. They are different from everyone else on the line up - they're not a pop punk band (as they will explain in Manchester, they made friends with With Confidence during Warped Tour, and the rest is history), but still, there's a whole lot of talent lying around in there. How do I start to explain Safe To Say? They're a little bit emo, a little bit alt rock, a little bit "shove them on every line up in Brighton and they'll blow the roof off the venue" - in the best possible way, a little bit Canadian enough to thank the crowd fifty times in the space of fifteen minutes, but most of all, a little bit very good. They're also a band I'm definitely going to keep listening to in the future. They were different, but I liked it. A lot.

There's not really a main support on the tour, but if you had to pick one, it would be California pop punks Broadside, mostly because, in sound, they're closer to the headliners than the other two, and also because they've received the strongest reaction out of the three.
Both nights, most people already knew who they were and, in Manchester, someone was already donning Broadside merch before the show. Their sunny pop punk tunes are infectious and catchier than the catchiest song you can think of right now, and my favourite thing about their music is that they are a pop punk band with true, genuine pop elements - I mean, it's called POP punk for a reason. If you're looking for a pop punk band whose frontman has a true pop voice (and you probably should), then, Broadside are for you. I don't think I was expecting the storm they've been both nights and I am coming back home a fan, wishing they were on the mainland Europe leg of the tour. If you're not convinced yet, I should probably tell you there's one hell of a key change in closer Coffee Talk, and you really, really cannot say no to a band that reminds you key changes are the single most satisfying thing in the world.

As Australian pop punk outfit With Confidence walk on stage both nights, I realise one thing -  it's crazy how a band can have the biggest impact on your life in the smallest amount of time. I only started listening to them at Christmas, because I was sad and you can't not have a smile on your face at some point if you watch the music video for Voldemort ten times in a row, and two months later, here I was, spending fourteen hours on a bus to see them play in a different country. Already.

About ten seconds into opener Voldemort, I knew I'd literally go anywhere in the world for this lot, and I wish it was an exaggeration.

These two shows have been everything I wanted them to be and so, so much more. I'd heard lots of people saying With Confidence were excellent live, and I can only confirm this - they were, indeed, brilliant. They have that quality I adore that made the live renditions of their songs sound like the studio recording, just a little more emotional at times (which is never a problem for yours truly the queen of emo) - Keys, mostly sang by guitarist Inigo Del Carmen, absolutely floored me both nights. I don't want to make generalisations, but it's often tough finding pop punk bands that sound as good live as they do on record, and I think we have a winner here. Sound-wise, With Con offered both Leeds and Manchester a perfect performance.
(I should also point out that frontman Jayden Seeley got sick at the beginning of the tour, and if it wasn't for them reminding us on stage, I wouldn't even have noticed. That's how good they sounded)

One thing I wasn't expecting, though, was how rowdy the crowd would be in Leeds (and, to an extent, in Manchester too). As the crowds are getting younger and emigrate to pop punk from pop lands, you don't expect crowdsurfers going at it the whole time, and you don't expect finding yourself in a circle pit during London Lights, but here you are. Quite simply put, the crowd in Leeds was just as perfect as the band. In Manchester, though, the gig was upgraded to the bigger part of Sound Control two hours before the show, and the much bigger room and barrier didn't help crowdsurfers - but still didn't stop them doing their thing. If I wasn't expecting rowdy crowds, I sure as hell wasn't expecting some dude trying to punch a guy first song in and in front of the band. People.





If you're going to a show in Leeds, one thing to expect is some chanting, and if the crowd hasn't shouted "Yorkshire, Yorkshire" at least once, you should probably ask for a refund. The best thing about, roughly, a hundred people chanting "u wot u wot Leeds" was the look of sheer confusion on Jayden Seeley's face as he admitted that "the only word (I) understood was Leeds". Australian people being confronted to typically English slang and also, to a whole crowd of people singing Wonderwall at random because, well, you're in Manchester is nothing short of amazing. Blame it on the years I spent, myself, learning English slang and being confused, blame it on the fact that this doesn't really exist in the French language, blame it on me studying English and linguistics and maybe blame it on the boogie, but man, I probably enjoyed it more than I should have.

The truth is, I have loved every second of both sets. The fact that my legs barely function as we speak and that I walked about forty minutes under the rain, then snow last night, and the punching idiot haven't ruined anything for me, and, I don't want to make this emotional or soppy, but nothing can take those two hours away from me. I have so many hightlights - the perfect singalongs are one. I'm not just a sucker for a good key change, I am one for a good singalong, too. The live rendition of Long Night, this time not featuring a piano but a guitar instead, was just gorgeous and hit me (and many more people) right in the feels. These shows felt like rediscovering songs I have been listening to on repeat for the past two months - I'd never realise I would cry at Dinner Bell, Gravity and Waterfall were as powerful as ever, having a boogie to oldies Tonight and Godzilla was blissful and... Can you believe a song makes you ten times happier live than it does on record? That's also what happened. 

Overall, there's no fault anywhere on these shows. I have finished writing this review and I am still sat in the food court of Victoria Coach Station, still wishing I was in Glasgow, Newcastle or Nottingham for another night of this. They're playing Paris in two weeks, and it feels like decades away.