That said,  it’s no surprise this guy’s debut album has been snapped up by Hospital Records, arguebly the world’s best Liquid Drum ‘n’ Bass record label. What sets him aside from other artists? The basslines he writes blend what can only be described as Burial-esque Dubstep sub-bass with a rhythm that screams funk. Then there’s the piano’s – the delicate licks that set atmosphere, the notation nearly irrelevant. Netsky is an Enigma – things that shouldn’t work do – and that’s something.

The first track I heard of his was “I Refuse.” How did it sound? A little under-produced, in truth. The track itself isn’t much more than a drumloop, a sampled vocal line, a bit of atmosphere and a wobbling bassline. What drove it to the ridiculously positive reviews was one simple thing – soul. Netsky is someone that captures imagination, the music itself a catalyst and not just the bland Jump-Up written for the masses to brock out to. Whoever the vocalist may be, his voice encapsulates pain and hurt. Does this happen often in Drum N Bass? Does it fuck.

Going from strength to strength, Netsky’s production rips most to shreds, and you can’t help but feel that he’s found himself since his earlier tracks. He’s a man with ideas, a shivering breath of fresh air in a world genericism. And, all else failing, there’s a great summery vibe to the majority of his tracks – Everyday especially – and if you can’t appreciate that, then you’ll be the only one not dancing. And that really, really sucks for you.

The pads scream dark and twisted, the chopped and screwed vocals form a haunting melody, and the drums pound on at a stupid level of intensity. The bassline heard and not just felt, because it’s more of a slap in the face than a subtle frequency filler – the rhythm jitters and drives, as any hectic drum n bass should, and the drums pound on at a stupid level of intensity. The fills turn your dancing sketchy, the ridiculous amount of reverb on the melody, the strings move in you, and the drums pound on. At a stupid level of intensity.

Beautiful Lies.

Label: Hospital Records Catalogue: NHS154 Format: 4×12″ Release Date: 15th June 2009

Funnily enough, just last night I was sat in a local pub-come-nightclub with my feet up watching the video for Propane Nightmares that some scummy student no doubt requested. Sure, they’re not that bad. Not great, but not bad. And they did sort of crap all over Drum N Bass. Furthermore, I’m still sick of people asking me if I like Drum N Bass and then being asked if I like Pendulum and Prodigy. Anyway…

I wake up the next day, a friend sends me a link, and suddenly, my opinion is blown wide open. Pendulum are the first band to film a music video using a 360 degree camera. The video itself is nothing special, but lord above, this is pure genius, and you’re probably about to soil yourself.

http://www.pendulum.com/360

In the past decade, Indie music has risen from a technicality (Indie meaning Independent, of course) to a full blown it’s-sodding-everywhere marketable genre of music. Bands such as The Fratellies have given us no-holds-barred overly-regionally-accented, hard hitting rock, with, of course, a folk twist. Mumford And Sons blow these bands completely out of the water, straight off the face of planet earth and blasts them into an infinite nothingness for one reason and one reason alone – they’re not pretending to sound like a folk band, they’re not copying other bands – they are, quite literally, what happened when a few music lovers got together with instruments ranging from a standard acoustic to a vintage Dobro and Double Bass, and wrote music for the hell of it.

What really strikes a nerve here is that in the world of elitism that modern music has created, there are few boundaries in Mumford And Son’s music – you can dance like a pillock, or enjoy it for what it is – it can be your night out, it can be your night in – it’s just good fun.

What the music doesn’t do, however, is anything particularly innovative or massively original. You won’t be blown away by the technical or deep emotive content of the music – the lyrics won’t give you a deeper outlook on life (ala Angels and Airwaves) and the technical instrumentation won’t cause you to soil yourself (ala Dream Theater,) but that doesn’t mean it’s bad by any stretch of the imagination. Anyone who’s ever seen a loud, upbeat folk band will appreciate the massive power of the Double Bass, and the simple fact that much like Modern Ska – it’s rustic, bouncy and a little bit absurd, but you can’t help but jump around and act like a complete trollop. Mumford & Sons are a band for the sake of good music, and little more – but frankly, that’s just the way we like it.

With a guitar riff strongly retsembling the acoustic version of Incubus’ “Pardon Me” (for some reason,) an incredibly famous (and overused) rave acapella and an overall slight lack in production value, You’ll Never Know, on paper, sounds like the kind of track you find littered all over IMOdownload and SoundCloud because it’s been promoted to hell by some 14-year-old, raised by the Internet rather than his parents, and bound to end up in an IT support job. That is far from the case -Shift Enigma’s latest offering is a track of charm – blissful percussion, a touch of heartbreak in the vocal, a structure that resonates in you – and that’s a pretty rare thing in a genre that generally prides iself on how loud and distorted it is. A little Staind – Outside to Metallica’s St Anger, if you will. Relax. Enjoy. Tune out.

Relient K’s latest offering, Forget And Not Slow Down, fortunately, doesn’t cross that line. I know very little about Christian music, admittedly – but I do know that it can be lyrically fantastic and appeal to anyone (ala Creed, Underoath) or absolutely terrible, despite the quality of the music (ala Anberlin.) Relient K fall into the first category, which is perhaps what’s best about their music. It’s uplifting and rejuvenating and be taken in a religious or non-religious way, without sounding as if the band have their nose deep inside their local Vicar’s arse. No offense to religious types, of course. If you ask me, this is a rare gift, and probably what makes Relient K such an inspiring band.

The song itself is a pleasing upbeat blend of acoustic and punk-rock that’s likely to have you singing along within the first listen. Relient K aren’t a band that will blow your mind with fantastic technical instrumentation, but they seem to make that extra effort to write “thinking moment” music (imagine a sort of running after the thing you’ve always wanted and just realized moment on Scrubs) that pulls out enough of the stops – but maybe not all of them – to result in a pretty epic and touching track. They can really sing too, and they don’t just rely on their lead singer like many bands. Relient K’s vocal harmonies are pure heaven (bad pun,) and go that extra mile to be a little tricky and clever (see I So Hate Consequences for some fantastic vocal work.) In the spirit of singer-songwritery, they don’t go particularly nuts musically, but rely more on the emotion and meaning of the music. Not a bad thing, but it won’t blow your mind if you’re more of a Dream Theater/Jimi Hendrix fan.

Still, I could spend all day writing articles, or you could just listen to it. That would be ace.

Relient K – Forget And Not Slow Down

There is hope, and it comes in the form of Mt. Eden, a Auckland-based duo who finally have the balls to push the genre further than shitty pop-electro remixes for Indie Kids. Now lie back, blow your speakers, and contemplate just how good Dubstep can be.

Mt Eden – Beautiful Lies

So, Pendulum announce a new tour. Sounds fun, right? I’ve wanted to see them for a while now – anything with an energetic live show is bound to be amazing. Not bad – even better that the awesome Sub Focus is supporting them. So I prance on over to TicketWeb to buy me and a few friends tickets.

Twenty-two fucking pounds fifty. Pendulum arn’t that huge, geez. Raveology, at the same venue, featuring Friction, Roni Size, Fabio & Grooverider, and LTJ Bukem to name but a few, costs 5 quid less than Pendulum’s headline gig, lasts twice as long, has over a dozen big-name DJ’s.

Money grabbing bastards. Awaiting some sort of “Urban Underground Awesome Arena Tour 2009″ with another ticket increase…

It’s not often a tour with such a strong line up comes around in our humble town of Birmingham, and even less often when the tour itself skips every other city in the country. Getting tickets wasn’t really a choice, it was a reaction – 15 quid for Funeral For A Friend, Fightstar, Kids In Glass Houses and Attack! Attack!, not to mention plenty of local and touring talent, totaling an absolutely mental 11 bands in one night. It’s taken me an entire paragraph just to tell you where it is and who was playing – talk about a grand scale.

Fortunately, I was considerably more sober for this than my last gig, so being able to remember almost the entire thing – and perhaps get caught up in less of the dancing and violence – will help me to be a better reviewer. Upon walking into the always-has-a-strong-smell-of-body-odour-in-the-aircademy, I was engulfed by a swamp of wristbands, tattoos (from the intricate and striking to the completely rubbish,) glowsticks (not quite sure where they came from) and, as previously mentioned, sweat. There was a strange, yet welcoming atmosphere in the air – the apprehension and impatience of waiting to see bands you’ve wanted to see for months, even years – I have been a fan of Funeral For A Friend since the release of Hours, and yet never seen them live – so, truthfully, this is probably going to be slightly biased on their front.

The problem with 4 band lineups and co-headliners is simply this – everyone’s there to see the biggest band, and when they’re not playing, the place doesn’t live up to the momentum that you get from a headline gig. Each band only got a 50 minute set, and I’d never be satisfied with anything less than an hour and fifteen for a headliner. That said, I can’t imagine how hard it must be to please an entire arena of 3,000 fans after 4 albums and 2 E.P’s, and you can’t do much but play your biggest and best songs, play them well and hope it all goes according to plan.

Funeral For A Friend pulled this off with all the skill of every band that’s lasted the distance, from the uplifting “Into Oblivion” (without exception, the highlight of the entire night – and a shining example of how an intro that the band doesn’t play live should be done – see Zebrahead gig earlier,) to the insane The Art Of American Football, the likes of which may actually have physically damaged the venue – and definitely damaged one person’s face, who was carried away from the pits half-concious. Grim. Kicking off with Streetcar, Funeral For A Friend rocked most of their classic tracks, bar perhaps Rookie Of The Year and definitely missing History, which would have made an unbelievable encore track – but for bands on a strict time limit and a club night starting an hour after the gig, an encore wasn’t an option. Sure, they’re little cliché, but a night never feels complete without one. Although this was beyond FFAF’s control, it was a slight let down at the climax of what was, overall, an unbelievable set. Choosing to play the classic tracks is rarely a bad idea – in the words of Kris Roe of The Ataris fame, – not playing your most famous track is like going to a Metallica concert and not hearing Enter Sandman” – and it’s doubtful that anyone will argue that this is a great ethic for any live band. Matt’s voice, coupled with their drummer’s sadistic roaring and guitarist’s enthusiastic, if not slightly forced backing vocals, delivered a set played with what seemed to be ease. It’s rare you see a place erupt in the manner it did when Juneau (or Juno, depending on which version you can argue with people on youtube about,) was dropped as their last track. My voice was struggling to sing along with the band and 3,000 eager voices by the end of the gig, but squeezing the last five minutes from such a great experience was, well, mandatory. Pain was felt afterwards, not to mention my voice dropping an octave – and needless to say, there were plenty of jokes about this such as “My name’s Barry White and I like making loovee with the lights onnn” on the way home. Our taxi driver didn’t look impressed. I also don’t understand why Matt screamed “MOTHER FUCKERS!” inbetween almost every song.

One thing I noticed was just how many couples stand near the side lines, hold each other as tight as possible throughout the entire gig, and yet still manage to jump around, together. It’s almost as if some divine balance is taking place, where love and music go hand in hand. Which makes absolutely no sense when everyone’s going mental to the bitter, hurt, yet anarchic sound of Fightstar’s “Palahniuk’s Laughter” – and looking at their backdrop – an image of a woman with a cow’s head. Oakey Dokey. It also makes the couple look like a pair of cretins. Fightstar, despite Charlie’s “awkward” beginnings in crap-punk trio Busted, throughout their career together, have been an incredibly flexible and deeply artistic band. War Machine, orchestral, broken and slightly twisted, completely wiped any inhibitions about Fightstar firing out “same old” material – the whole thing felt like a horrific, impending doom had fell upon the academy, and it was, in a word, epic. For a band that wanted to write a track that “captures something as epic as the big bang” with Grand Unification (Part 1,) they’re still pulling it off a couple of albums later. Fightstar, by any standard, are definitely not light-hearted.

That’s not to say Fightstar can’t get the crowd singing, and plenty there was with the slightly-less-depressing-than-most-of-Fightstar’s-other-music We Apologise For Nothing. Alex, their lead guitar and second vocalist, sounds considerably better on their newer work – his appearance on Hazy Eyes, although a great track, is no doubt a little too emo-punk and overall whiney for most, and you can’t help but appreciate how he’s developed vocally as the band has on the whole. Fightstar may never be huge, but their existence is a great thing, and I would see them again in a heartbeat.

(By the way, am I the only one who thinks that Amaze Us sounds like a new Rage Against The Machine Track in the beginning?)

In an effort not to bore you, providing you’ve read this far already, my words on the last two bands (who ironically played first) will be considerably shorter than the previous. Kids In Glass Houses, a band that sit somewhere between modern Indie and ah, I dunno – let’s say Fall Out Boy – seemed a little under-appreciated. The Vans Off The Wall Music Night should probably have been named the Vans Welsh Music Night, considering all four majors bands were, indeed, from Wales. For a band that have only written one album, Kids In Glass Houses’ set didn’t get boring, which may have been lucky, more than anything. Luck, or the overall Charisma of frontman Aled Phillips, who, at one point managed to catch a glowstick that some complete trollop threw at him. Admittedly, the set was relatively uninteresting, which is what’s expected from a second support, really – but that’s probably because Smart Casual has been out for about two years now, and it wasn’t a brilliant album then. Their recent single “Young Blood” doesn’t really fill in the gaps, but luckily Kids In Glass Houses have enough material to fill a support slot, and most of it good enough for people to enjoy themselves. Kids In Glass Houses also played a new track (which doesn’t seem to have surfaced on the internet yet,) which pretty much boasts more of the same – but we can guess they’re just getting started. With their sophomore album due in March 2010, they’re worth keeping an eye on – but at the moment, not much more.

Again, I’ll be honest in saying that I missed most of Attack! Attack!, due to, again, “not paying those bloody drink prices.” Their last few songs were pretty awesome, and although their following seemed to be small, the fans were really going for it. It’s hard to find out exactly which band I was listening to, on account of there being about 3 bands with the name Attack Attack in one form or another – these were the indie/rock sounding version, not the horrifically bad scene-electro counterpart. Another great set from a decent band – and for the third support (if you consider FFAF to be the main act,) that’s pretty awesome going.

I’m not going to lie – when a band can pull off singing about pretending not to speak English and picking up dog poo, they must be doing something right. Bowling For Soup, however, can’t. And that’s why it was great fun.

That’s not to say that the gig was bad, though, providing you forget about the support bands. Fortunately I missed most of the first two, having previously heard their material, which was rubbish at best. MC Lars even has a track that uses the chorus from Iggy Pop’s famous “The Passenger.” Needless to say, I left, went outside whilst my friends smoked, and I tried to avoid being splashed by cars driving through an absolutely mammoth puddle. It was a much more interesting and enjoyable experience, and although I only caught a few of MC Lars‘s-s-es tracks, my opinion stands. It was almost as bad as watching Iggy Pop himself.

Zebrahead were considerably more interesting and enjoyable, although tipping on very generic, admiteddly. You can’t say they didn’t put the effort in, for one thing – and the atmosphere on stage and in the crowd was pretty awesome. However, three rules should always be adhered to when supporting a band that sell out every venue they play;

1: The Wall Of Death is neither original, nor cool, and makes your band look shit and unimaginative. The same goes for using the 2001: A Space Odyssey theme music for your opening. Zebrahead did both. Ouch.

2: You need a sound. Your own sound. That does not mean writing a hard metal song, writing a pop-punk song, writing an acoustic song, and acting like a completely different person on stage for each one. A bit of consistency and originality, for fuck’s sake.

3: Taking your top off and showing off your muscles and athletic ability on stage makes you look like a pretentious cock.

That said, Zebrahead didn’t do a bad job, although they’re probably always going to be the support band – unless they develop into something better.

Anyway, onto the main event – BFS have just released a new album “Sorry For Partyin‘,” featuring all the usual toilet humour and the word “gay” about 20 times – again. You may know BFS best through their well-known pop-punk classics “Almost” and “1985.” They’re not special songs, admittedly – but pop punk was never really meant to be incredible, it’s just good fun. What BFS do-do, is write happy-go-lucky songs driven by teenage angst and insecurity – a sort of perfect recipe for a largely under-20 fanbase. Truthfully, my memory of the night is a tad hazy, due to a massive pre-drinking session because “we’re not paying those bloody prices” followed by the inevitable “I’m getting a pint, I don’t care, I’m having fun” at the venue itself. I did make a note of grabbing a pint of Strongbow at the start of BFS, of which the first quarter I thoroughly enjoyed watching their introductory video – a message from the band, a “cheers for coming!” section, followed by their brand new theme song which can be found on their official youtube page. It wasn’t until the band took to the stage and started off with “The Bitch Song” that the other three quarters went flying in a torrent of mental teenagers all pushing forwards – and that was an awesome moment, where it seems like the ice of trying not to dance like a complete prick is completely shattered, and everyone around you is suddenly united by the music. Any gig goer will know this well, and lavish every moment of it. Every moment they can still remember, anyway.

Some of their new material, frankly, is far from great. My Wena (no prizes for guessing the obvious euphemism) was pretty boring, overall – the whole thing sounds very Bloodhound Gang, not much more than a collection of cock-related puns with a half-arsed backing track. This isn’t to say BFS can’t still knock out a great song though, as reflected by No Hablo Ingles and A Really Cool Dance Song. None of it’s too serious, obviously, but BFS never have been – and it’s good to see they’re sticking to their guns unlike so many bands that seem to go on a mad tangent musically after a few albums. That’s not to say they havn’t developed, however – their sound has changed distinctly, and I dare say there is something more mature and reflective about their music on the whole – but it’s no Bob Dylan, fortunately, and still has the same sense of humour of a 14 year old who’s just discovered Internet Porn. If you ever need proof, just check out “BFFF” – sometimes we punch each other in the face, like when I hit on your mom and got to second base. Awesome.

It’s been a few years since I was really into Bowling For Soup, and admittedly, I was a lot younger, mentally. And physically. But mentally, I thought they were a lot deeper when I was more naive – being surrounded by 15 year olds I felt pretty old, and maybe I should be going out clubbing and developing a less cretinous taste in live music – but more than likely, probably not. Singing them back, it’s only now that I’ve realised just how face-scrunchingly corny some of their lyrics are. BFS‘ setlist was a great mix of the classics (encoring with 1985, naturally,) and new material that wasn’t crap live (again, except for My Wena,) not forgetting their cover of Katy Perry‘s “Hot and Cold.” A Really Cool Dance Song was one of the best parts of the show by far, where Jaret ditched the guitar and took on the role of singer/crowd-hyper, only for the stage to be flooded by all the members of the other bands. A Really Cool Dance Song is rather satirical, no doubt ripping at bands like Metro Station and Enter Shikari - “This song sounds like a dance song, ’cause dance songs are cool now” – but maybe a little hypocritically, it makes for a brilliant track to jump to. Who knows, the whole thing was probably one big contradiction. I didn’t care, and neither did anyone else. I was plastered. Great stuff, lads.

The hour and fifteen minutes or so that the gig actually lasted, these parts aside, was relatively uneventful. Gap time banter, songs being played, the odd dance here and there – the usual. I suppose there’s no reason to overdo it – the sound quality at the venue itself was pretty dire, truthfully – unless you like songs where you can only hear the kick, snare and vocals. Sort of like demented teenage rap music. Jaret can definitely hold a decent-enough tone, and maybe they’re helped by the overall simplicity of their music – but, giving them enough credit, they can definitely play live, and get right into it, which is always great to see – there’s nothing worse than a band who blatantly arn’t enjoying themselves. They played, we had a laugh, the crowd sang, and one of my friends nutted someone’s shoulder and bled all over himself from the nose – and that was good enough for me. A hilarious, drunken, immature, very slippery floored, expensive bar’d gig. Quality.

Finally, name me one person that doesn’t want their lead singer’s guitar, and I will give you a tenner. That is all.