Robyn Writes

Interview: Fair Do’s

It’s hard to really describe Fair Do’s. But what can be said about them is that they’re ridiculously good fun. Kitteh caught up with the four piece skate-tech-punk-insertyourfavouredgenrehere band at a punk/hardcore all dayer in Grimsby to quiz them on their DIY spirit, exactly what they play and our all time favourite question – who would win a knife fight with a bear?

If I may paraphrase the great Cilla Black- what’s your name and where do you come from?

Josh: I’ll take this one if you don’t mind. We’re Fair Do’s and that and we’re from Manchester and Rosendale. They’re two places from the North. You might have heard of them.

Danny: I’m Danny and I play guitar and do lots of other little bits.

John: (deadpan) I’m John and I play drums.

And the enthusiasm clearly comes from you, John.

Josh: He’s the driving force of all fun times in the band.

Danny: We fall asleep and we wake up where we need to be. Then he stops being enthusiastic. He’s enthusiastic about things not slowing down on the motorway.

Fair Do’s is quite a chirpy name–

Josh: Chirpy? It is indeed-

Compared to a lot of bands that you often find yourself billed with; bands like Hang the Bastard-

Josh: We’re a fun time band for fun time people.

That sounds a little too much like a prostitution ring.

Josh: Nah, we’ve played in a lot of bands, but when it came down to Fair Do’s – Danny came up with the name – it does suit the band well. I mean you can come up with a name, then have to spend ten minutes explaining the meaning to them, then afterwards they just say ‘fair do’s’. Literally, that’s the craic.

Danny: The thing is though, when we named our band Fair Do’s, nobody said ‘fair do’s’, they just started asking what ‘Fair Do’s’ meant! It’s difficult to explain. You always have to give them a scenario, then end it with ‘fair do’s’. But you know what, it’s been on the Mighty Boosh, it’s been on Peep Show; it’ll be in the dictionary soon…WITH an apostrophe. Essentially, everyone knows what ‘fair do’s’ means, and i’m not saying it’s because of us… But we said it before it was cool. We were in a band that wore black shirts and red ties before it was cool. We’ve been doing it for ages.

You hardly play an identikit sound, so would you put yourself into a specific genre?

Josh: There isn’t really a genre, it’s just fast and aggressive!

John: Most people would call us skate punk first off, but we’re too technically able to be classed as that. We’re more melodic hardcore as opposed to a skate punk band who play five chords.

Josh: Aggressive disco.

Danny: The way I think about it, there are bands such as NOFX that have little Bill and Ted bits – bands like Almeida and Darko. You’ve got your standard punk, then you’ve got your ‘wibblywibblywoo’ bit. The thing with Fair Do’s is that we all listen to different shit, so it comes in from different areas.

Danny: We’ve all come from the same areas, you know, we were all listening to Strung Out, Death By Stereo- but then we got into a lot of metal. Take Strung Out, they have a lot of metal guitars, slightly lower tuning. They tune full D, we tune drop D, it’s just as low-

Josh: We also always have more aggressive singing. We go for a more intense singing. It’s not as though we don’t go for the more melodic singing-

Danny: We love melody, but to quote John, we don’t love poncery.

John: Poncery, poncery, we can’t do poncery.

Danny: Well if you’ve seen us with Sean (ex-vocalist), when he joined we re-did an old song to make it more melodic. But then we have friends who are in really fast, heavy hardcore bands and they saw it as us changing our entire sound, and started saying that they preferred us before. It’s just one song. We’re varied.

Do you think that saying that you’re influenced by metal is now a bit of a dirty word?

Josh: Not at all. When we say ‘metal’, it’s a gigantic fucking circle with so many bands in it. Take me and John for example. We like bands like Necrophagist, Black Dahlia Murder obviously – there a big influence for us. Take the Black Dahlia Murder; there a huge influence for us. I mean they’re well fast all the time – I mean they’ve got blasts and all that, but they’re still punk. It’s more like we’re not going to make songs about jumping around and going to shows, (terrible American accent) ‘yeah man, we’re at a show, everything’s so awesome’. We appreciate bands that do that, but it’s just not us.

Danny: This is an exclusive, but our songs aren’t really about anything. They just sound like they are! There’s one or two, but you’ve got to guess ‘em. They’re the sound that they are. There’s a song that I wrote in fifteen minutes as Bury College that was utterly ridiculous-

Josh: But at the same time, you can still get deepness from it. Because it’s up to you what you gain from it.

Danny: But on top of that question, we do get compared to Wilhelm Scream a lot. I don’t mind that at all, although I think we’re a bit more metal and a lot less tight than Wilhelm Scream.

Josh: I know what you mean though, about metal being a dirty word. Scenes move. When Nu-Metal came about, when people heard the buzzword ‘metal’ they thought ‘oh yeah, like Papa Roach’, no, no. Nowadays if you ask people about metal, they’re more likely to have heard of the Black Dahlia Murder over Limp Bizkit.

Danny: But it can also be a problem. Nowadays, if some people hear a melody, they think ‘oh, that’s emo’.

Josh: One thing we don’t like is to mix screaming with singing. It’s not that we don’t like bands that do that, it’s just that we want to create a general aura.

Whatever you do, you’re going to get pigeon-holed as hardcore or punk…

Josh: Then when people come up to you, they’re all ‘I think you’re like this, I think you’re like that’, then they ask you what you think you are. I just think, I don’t know mate, I’m playing folk music. You can see it in lots of Dance Music. You hear something, ask what it is, then they tell you it’s ‘fidgity cracky house’.

Danny: Jungle-break-core!

You gig a hell of a lot nowadays, into Europe and whatnot, and you’re usually put onto bills with similar artists, so you’re aware of what much of the scene is like nowadays. Would you say there are any particular forerunners at the moment?

Danny: Almeida are number one. A Wilhelm Scream are the best band I’ve ever seen, but Almeida are one of the best bands in the fucking country.

Josh: One of the first gigs we played was in Bognor, and Almeida were on afterwards, and we just stood there thinking ‘ah, wait, that’s what we want to do’. But there are loads of other bands that’re doing well for themselves, like Darko. The Fear are absolutely smashing it.

John: Bells on Records are good friends of ours, so we’re always around their bands.

Josh: There’s not so much a scene around at the moment, just a huge group of friends.

Danny: We met Laughing In The Face Of on tour. They play fast shit, melodic, banging. You meet a band, you play with them- between 95/99% of the time, you can watch a band and know that they’ll be really nice lads.

Josh: There are no real bands we think are shit, but I will say one thing. If you’re playing music and someone’s come to watch you, give them the time of day. If you’re in a band, talk to everyone. When you’re waltzing ‘round, you might look sick with your ears and your tattoos and your vest, but none of that matters.

Danny: I just realised how much shit we’re talking. In answer to your question, The Human Project, The Fear, Almeida, and they’re not around anymore but Sick Trick, From The Tracks, Drones.

Aside from record labels and all of that, I’ve seen Fair Do’s a few times before and you’ve always been armed with a stack of CDs to sell for a quid. Do you think the DIY ethos is the only way to keep young bands alive today?

John: The problem is, there are just so many people doing the same thing you do at the same time. You need to make yourself accessible. Fair enough if you can give your stuff out for free, but just charging a quid for four or five songs isn’t much. It’s nice when people take an interest in you, but more often than not, you’re wandering ‘round a venue, trying to force your merch on people. It’s not nice to do, but you have to do it.

Danny: It’s not nice, but when you’re on tour and you need fuel in the tank, and you’re away for many more weeks, it’s hard. You plough money into merch, and you always end up coming home with loads of t-shirts.

Josh: We’ve got a stack of CDs, we’ve copied them, put a sticker on them, and that’s it. We’re just trying to sell you the music. Hopefully in the future, everything will look well sick with CD sleeves and everything, but we’re not there yet.

John: That’s the harsh reality of being in a band. It’s not easy to buy all the things you need; fuel, instruments, a van, it’s not cheap. We don’t sit on our arses, thinking of songs to write; we work 9-5 all week and put our own money into our own products so we can give them away cheaply.

Danny: Take our EP, we’ve been working on that for god knows how long-

John: That’s the thing, you can get stuck in a rut, while you’re still itching to get them out. Who will do it for you if you’re not doing it yourself?

Josh: You need to spend money to make money. You should never set out to make money, just to get more people into your band. People spend fifty quid on a night out, fuck that.

John: Just make sure, if there’s a gig in your local town, just go. Give a few quid to the bands, buy a sticker; anything. We could be going out at weekends, hunting foxes and killing badgers, but we don’t. Just support music.

At Crash Doubt, your then vocalist turned up in a Kelly Clarkson t-shirt, which was great, but he stood out like a sore thumb in amongst all the muscle shirts and all that goes with it. Especially in terms of image, do you think hardcore is taking itself too seriously nowadays?

All: Yes!

John: I mean, we like to have fun, and we’re not a hardcore band that’s going to stand there with X’s tattooed on our chests.

I saw Brotherhood of the Lake play earlier this year, and their vocalist turned up in a balaclava, looking very IRA.

John: I don’t see the point of making a statement with your image when you could be making it with your music.

Josh: We’ve turned up to Lordi and Crust Punk gigs in t-shirts and jeans, and they just look at us gone out. You need to be in tight black gear with tattoos on your neck to fit in nowadays. If something’s comfortable, I’ll wear it. People do look at us a bit strange, but once you break down those barriers with people, it’s fine.

John: You have to be respectful, but it’s a stale scene really. It’s all the same. In Europe, things are fine, no one distrusts you, but back in England, its so image based. We don’t give a shit what anyone looks like though, we don’t care if your jeans are skinny or baggy or if you’ve got tattoos on your face.

Josh: Years ago, everyone was into Bring Me the Horizon and Architects; they were growing fringes, dying their hair black and wearing girls jeans. But scenes change, and most people are done with that. It’s fine stretching your ears really, really big, but two years later, you might change your mind, and then you have to deal with that.

Perhaps then, if you don’t get caught up in a certain image, it can give you a greater chance for longevity.

Josh: Black Dahlia Murder, right. They played one of their first gigs alongside people that were playing in all black, then they turned up in shorts and Hawaiian shirts. That’s what I always think back to.

Have you had any particular musical highlights this year in terms of your own performances or other band’s activity?

Danny: The New Frenzal Rhomb album, from Brisbane Australia, is one of the cleanest, cleanest albums i’ve heard in a long time, it’s awesome. That was last year though. The Fear’s new album too – they supported Belvedere at their first reunion gig in Paris and that was one of the best shows i’ve ever been to. In terms of our performances, I think we played pretty well at Flatliners.

John: We played with A Wilhelm Scream a while back an it was one of the best gigs we played; not only because we played with them, but because we were with a crowd that supported the support bands as much as the headliner. The whole set was just hammered and the support was really great. A great crowd, stood in front of you, going mental for twenty minutes was just great. Great for us to see something like that.

Danny: It was by far one of the best reactions we’ve ever had when we’ve been a support. We played a gig in Italy last year too, and I still think that’s the best gig we’ve ever played.

John: Completely different to the UK/mainland response. People willingly buy your merch as opposed to scoffing at it. They enjoy things and are aware far more of how things work. They realise it costs nothing to be nice. It always comes down to that.

Danny: Our tour in Europe in November is half booked and it doesn’t feel as though we’ve even got started yet. You usually go out with a load of strangers, but this time, we’re going out to meet friends. It’s also about being grateful for everything you’ve got. Always keep your eye on something. Keep asking. If you don’t get the gig that you want, then gig more and ask again.

Is there anything in Fair Do’s foreseeable future that’s exciting?

Danny: Yes! We’re going on tour in November with Almeida. The best band the UK has ever seen; and I know they’re big words. That means they’re better than Capdown, everything. Yep, yep, yep.

Josh: We’ve got the tour, we’ve got this demo/EP thing coming, then in the next six or nine months, we’re hoping to get an album going. Essentially, we want to try more than what we’ve got at the moment.  We want to get CDs sorted, proper CDs instead of these stickered demos. We might charge more, but it’d be a far more substantial purchase. Something to hold on to, something to put on your shelf.

Finally, we ask this question to every band we interview. Out of everyone in Fair Do’s, who would win in a knife fight with a bear?

Danny: Josh! He has the experience.

John: There’s much better things to kill than bears. What about politicians?

Danny: I suppose. I mean, a bear’s not going to fuck you over for money.

No, it’d just claw your face.

Josh: It wouldn’t claw your face, it’d take your fucking face off; it’d palm you.

Danny: When I was in Romania, in these mountains, I met this guy; he was a skinhead and a bit mental. He told me this story about this person who got slashed across the chest by a bear. Big fucking bears, and they would fuck you up.

Josh: Can a bear hold a knife?

Potentially, but it’s more likely that someone gaffer taped a knife to his paws-

Josh: Who did this? It’s a bit fucking cruel.

Danny: Is that like some vegan hardcore thing-

Josh: People who do these things to bears shouldn’t be included in a zine.

We don’t know who did this to the bear, it’s just been released-

Josh: What the fuck?

Well, one of you has to fight it.

Josh: Oli fucking Sykes would. Like a twat.

Danny: I’d fight the cunt who taped the knives to his paws.

John: The more likely scenario is that we’d all talk shit to it until it passed out, then we’d just leave.

Archimedes, Watch Out! – In Context

Archimedes, Watch Out! – I’m not quite sure why they named themselves after an Ancient Greek mathematician, but I am sure that this is a band worth taking notice of. For fans of Fall Out Boy and New Found Glory, this might be a band for you. Actually, scrap that. It’s not fair to build a band up for a fall, so don’t listen to AWO! expecting FOB take 2, but if that kind of pop-punk is your thing, you really should have a listen to these guys.

AWO! are a six-piece band from Texas who list bands like The Wonder Years and Motion City Soundtrack amongst other inspirations. Following on from their 2010 EP “A Face for Radio”, the band released their debut album this August called “In Context”.

I can’t conclusively say whether or not What About Smee? is meant to refer to Captain Hook’s right-hand man, but I sure hope it is! Peter Pan references aside, What About Smee provides a solid and apt opening to the album. The lead guitar plays away joyfully and the vocals seem promising too. Dalton Claybrook (vocalist) manages to show off his voice with frequent changes in pitch and strength, but the song ends rather abruptly. It conjures memories of the Sopranos season finale where it cuts to black in mid sent…

Inspired By True Events, sadly for me, is a low point of the album. Like in the song before, AWO! try to combine the catchy poppy choruses with enough guitar and fast drums to put the ‘punk’ in pop-punk, but unlike the album opener this seems a little confused. Half way through the song a female vocalist makes an appearance and while this usually makes a nice change, the way she and Dalton sing across each other hits me like nails on a chalkboard.

Bad Tattoos and Breakable Things, songs three and four, quickly make up for this hiccup. Bringing some more punk to the pop with the fast kick-drums, a strong bass line and a synth riff opening, Breakable Things which held promises of a heavier song than AWO! ultimately delivered. This is quite nicely juxtaposed against their ability to stay equally pop-rockish with synth mixed choruses filling Bad Tattoos. Songs five, six and seven carry on in the same fashion, bringing fun, punchy songs to sing-along to. The guitars continue to chirp away happily. It sums up a lot of what the album achieves: that happy sound in the background that can’t help but get lodged in your head and make you smile.

Stranded stands out as a little more sombre than what came previously, but once the vocals come in and join the guitar it doesn’t lead into anything that you haven’t heard before. By itself it is a good song, no doubt about that, the vocals are as good as ever and the guitar is just as infectious as in Bad Tattoos (probably becoming my highlight of the album), but that’s part of the problem – it’s just no different.

Don’t Turn Back Now does bring something new to the table, a nice little acoustic number, but at forty-four seconds it is only one verse long and serves as nothing more than an interlude before songs eleven and twelve. A refreshing change, even if it was only short-lived.

The lyrics throughout may be a little generic for pop-punk, with no real ingenuity in the songs but a lot of potential, especially for a debut album. However the lack of diversity in the album sees the last few songs merge into one. Each song by itself (maybe with the exception of Inspired by True Events) is a song well worth listening to and maybe in an age were less and less people buy full albums, that’s all you can ask for.

4 out of 5 high fives!

Moral Dilemma – Bigger Cages Longer Chains [7″]

If there’s one word that sums up Moral Dilemma at first, it’s nostalgic. Their furious hardcore laced punk rock is loud, brash and sounds like it’s come kicking and screaming through a wormhole from the 90s to the present day. Right from the off, in title track Bigger Cages Longer Chains, the pounding bass and raspy, barely intelligible screams immediately take you back. It’s fast, furious and at first, deceptively simple. But upon a closer listen, there’s some ballsy guitar, and the dual vocals from Craig and Chloe assault you from every angle. And there’s not forgetting the absolutely impeccable bluesy solo towards the end.

Spare The Vote Spare The Ballot is equally as explosive, but slows it down enough for Craig’s vocals to become more understandable and allows the band’s political discontent to take the forefront. Even though the lyrics are worth paying attention to – although it’s pretty much your general political anger, there’s some great phrasing – the sheer fury with which they are delivered is more than enough to get you going. And then later, the psychobilly style pedal effects are, quite simply, filthier than a crust punk at a festival.

B-side New Empire sounds like it was ripped straight from The Distillers’ Sing Sing Death House, and that’s no bad thing at all. In the absence of Brody Dalle from the punk sphere, Chloe takes the mantle and powers through the track like a freight train in an avalanche while drummer Pasty pounds the skins with an intensity that’s unmatched throughout the record.

Admittedly, I walked into Bigger Cages Longer Chains with slight trepidation, but it’s well produced, without sounding too slick, more varied than you’d expect and quite possibly one of the best punk records I’ve heard all year. It’s short, it’s to the point and it’s really bloody good.

4.5 out of 5 high fives!

Merthyr Rock Festival 2012 [31 Aug – 2nd Sept, Cyfarthfa Park, Merthyr Tydfil]

Despite Merthyr Rock only being in its second year, I already regard it as one of my favourite festivals and a more than necessary summer break. While Wales has produced some incredible bands over the years – Funeral For a Friend, Lostprophets and The Blackout but to name a few – it never quite got a break as far as festivals are concerned. That was until 2011 when Hay Festivals decided to not only rock the valleys, but blast a fresh crater into those grassy hills. Last year’s lineup was a day shorter but stellar nonetheless. Managing to snare such names as Young Guns, My Passion and Skindred for your first outing is beyond impressive, so to say there were high expectations for 2012 would be an understatement.

While I had tickets for all three days and attended each accordingly, alas, I am only one person and no doubt I missed some incredible performances on various stages over the days. So count this as a highlights package. Saying that, I varied my tastes and aimed to experience a good cross-section of all music available and you know what? Merthyr topped itself, the whole thing was bloody glorious, from the setup to the food to the weather. Parts of it were so brilliant, that I’m starting to think I dreamed it…

Despite my eventual glee, Friday was never going to be my night. I could liken the experience to being attacked with an indie machine gun; me and the Kooks get along about as well as Inigo Montoya and the man who killed his father. So who was headlining? Razorlight. It was going to be a long night.

But thankfully, before all that hat-wearing frivolity kicked off, there were a good few bands to get through. First on my agenda were The People The Poet (4/5) (formerly known as Tiger Please), who could easily have been awarded the title of ‘best vocals of the weekend’ without having to have seen any other acts. Their singer has the most luscious, rich, gravelly and overwhelmingly divine voice I’ve ever heard; imagine chucking whiskey in a cement mixer. To top this, their music is full and indulgent with all the simplicity and charm of traditional folk music. No doubt, they’ll be earmarked for future NME readers to fawn over, but until then, catch them before they realise how damn good they are. Also, they sang the cheeriest song of the weekend about abortion, so if that doesn’t merit a listen, I don’t know what does. Saves The Day (3/5) were a band I was more intrigued than excited to see. Like many people, I remember flailing around my bedroom in 2002, straining my voice, singing along to At Your Funeral. But that was it. I knew little of their work since and was interested to see if they could still perform, or were reduced to a dull, bland band, feeding off their own sense of nostalgia. My expectations weren’t exactly confounded, but they hardly surprised me either. They’re still a comfortable band with a solid, fun sound, but their lack of dynamism on stage reflected in the audience’s reaction, really limiting their performance. Razorlight (3/5) are an odd one for me to try and sum up. I had many of their hits inflicted on my ears while sitting in the refectory at college, so I was grudgingly familiar with much of their set before they started playing, but that wasn’t enough to make me raise a smile. I could simpIy say that I found the entire set to be dull as dishwater. Soulless music for people that can’t be bothered to look beyond the charts. But that’s a silly, dismissive response. There’s no doubt that they’re all competent musicians and their sound was as crisp, clear and as ‘together’ as it had been on the radio. But when it came to going further than those four or five radio-friendly hits from the past few years, they fell more than a little flat. Their armoury is badly stocked, but I don’t think this phases their general audience.

Saturday was a far greater draw in terms of crowd size, and it’s unsurprising considering the quality lineup in place. After the traditional pre-gig Nando’s excursion, I found myself in front of the re-named James McLaren stage (a wonderful Welsh music journalist who tragically passed away recently), in the presence of Bastions (3.5/5); a tight little hardcore outfit whose raw energy and unbridled power really stood out amongst their fellow bands. While they weren’t exactly challenging any existing genre constructs or techniques, they were really quite good. Fitting somewhere between Brotherhood of the Lake and the more simplistic side of Polar, I wouldn’t be surprised if they joined TDONs books before the year was out. After a brief break from the stages (with signing sessions galore, it’d be rude not to partake), I soon found myself in the presence of Rise to Remain (3.5/5). Rise to Remain are a damn good, young, interesting metal band that seem to have shot up the ladder of success pretty quickly, but suddenly got stuck on one step and haven’t been able to shift since. With a set varied enough to please any metal fan – rabid or casual – and a charismatic frontman in the form of Austin ‘My dad’s in Iron Maiden, ain’t he’ Dickinson, they certainly had all the ingredients, it was just in the cooking that something didn’t quite fit. Yashin (4/5) however seemed very sure of themselves. Perhaps too sure. Yashin are the archetypal scene frontmen; they are hair and iPhones and suggestions of sex. Their online presence is more centred around hair than music, and soon enough their only receptive audience will be the young girls that pore over their filter-heavy pictures on Instagram. In short, Yashin made me feel old and disconnected. That’s the bad stuff. To their credit though, Yashin make damn good music. Although they’re hardly putting a new slant on the dual vocalist routine, they certainly have the best of the best; all screams are powerful and controlled and all clean singing is well-pitched with a really sweet natural tone. With poppy melodies expertly juxtaposed against grinding basslines, their music dances between fun and anthemic with enviable ease.

Lower Than Atlantis (4.5/5), where to start? I’m biased for a start – LTA are by far one of my favourite bands in the UK at the moment, and their innovative, distinctly British take on melodic hardcore is unrivalled. They’re consistent performers, visibly giving their all in every set, regardless of audience sizes. While frontman Mike Duce is the undisputed figurehead of LTA, when they play live, they perform as a unit, with no one fading into the background or playing second fiddle to a more magazine-friendly face. Despite the great sounds coming from the Watford quartet, the setlist was a little lacking – in phasing out much of their older material, their overall stage time lacked a little depth and weight, but with great new songs such as Normally Strange and Love Somebody Else on the list, they could be partially forgiven. While Lower Than Atlantis had grubby charm by the bucketful, Skindred (5/5) had swagger by the craterful. Every time I see Skindred live, as I leave the venue, I’m so buzzing and over-awed by the whole experience that I always think I must have imagined the extent of their mind-blowing performance. I mean, they couldn’t really be that good? But tonight, as the opening bars of the imperial march rang out once more, Skindred not only tore up the rule book, but burned it, buried it and rewrote it. I defy you to find a band more original than Skindred (seriously, name me another ‘ragga metal’ band) and a frontman more captivatingly charismatic than Benji Webbe. With an expertly chosen setlist that had the audience bouncing as one, dancing as one and Newport Helicopter-ing as one, the rag-tag bunch of Newport gents had Merthyr in the palm of their hand. Mixing crowd favourites such as Warning and Pressure with more groove based tracks as Trouble and Cut Dem. Audience jibes and Beyonce segues aside, Skindred are first and foremost a professional band; they take their music and their influence seriously, not only aiming to preach a gospel of fun and partying, but of unity and tolerance – an aim that lies somewhere north of impressive in these cynical times. Skindred are kings, and it’s only a matter of time until we all bow down.

For me, Sunday was mixed to say the least. With my allergies flaring up like nobody’s business, I missed more bands than I ever wanted to, and with old idols destroying their legacy, I left the site with a far different feeling than previously. Annoyingly, Future of the Left (3/5) was the first band I was able to focus all my attention on, and I hardly had to push my way through a packed tent. FOTL were by far the most ‘wildcard’ booking of the festival; with a far more brash and uncooperative sound than most, they weren’t quite on the same wavelength as many of the young festival goers. Despite this, their quirky and fuzzy-guitared take on alt-rock was a real breath of fresh air, and while songs such as Sheena is a T-Shirt Salesman were hardly going to have you thinking about your relationships and approach to life, they’d certainly get you dancing. Also, there was a lady bassist. A real life woman, stood there, playing bass, in proper clothes, and being fucking talented. More of this please. We Are The Ocean (4/5) have a beautiful sound and heartfelt, weighty lyrics that you often feel that you could touch, and were always given an edge with a dash of screams. With one screamer down and one clean vocalist taking the full blast of the limelight, my excitement at watching WATO was as much influenced by my love of their music as it was sheer fascination as to how they’d cope with a more stripped-down approach. But despite notable absences, WATO triumphed. They were bound to be a tad shaky while everyone adjusts to their new roles (some of the back-up replacement screaming was pitchy at best), but overall their sound was as awe-inspiring as before. With a bit more movement on stage, they’ll be back to their old selves in no time. Canterbury (4/5) are on their way to something huge. They have a sound so strange and minor harmonies so tight that it should make the listener feel uneasy, but on the contrary, those nice young chaps (who love their mums very much) are phenomenal musicians. As soon as they strike into any song, they begin to create something far larger than themselves, something that far more people need to hear. Canterbury are odd, wonderful and deserve every scrap of recognition they get. Back on the mainstage were Deaf Havana (3/5). Oh Deaf, where do we start? Since hearing Meet Me Half Way At Least many moons ago, I was sold on Deaf Havana’s introspective and self-deprecating output and I was never slow to shower them with praise. But as the success of 2011’s Fools and Worthless Liars began to grow, my appreciation and tolerance of their performance and vocal nature on and off stage waned. Don’t get me wrong, the album is a good ‘un. It’s deeply personal, well written and a rightfully successful release. Hell, I went to the release party, I did multiple dates on the tour, I did the lot. But now, Deaf have egos the size of their venues and are convinced (or James is at least) that their newfound recognition means that their only valid release, their only creation with merit is Fools and Worthless Liars. With a set at Merthyr consisting of only two songs that weren’t on FAWL and the declaration that their much loved anthem Friends Like These was ‘fucking shit’, I left feeling dejected and cheated. When you perform half-arsed (Merthyr’s performance was better than most recent festival/support slots) and believe your own hype, both your fanbase and your band will consume itself. I don’t know what to think Deaf, I just don’t know.

Thankfully, the nostalgia-fest that was A (4.5/5) hit the second stage and released me from my Norfolk-based melancholy. Seeing A live was a real milestone for me as Nothing was the first CD single I ever bought and provided the soundtrack to much of my pre-teen greebo angst. Despite not having performed much since 2005 and barely rehearsing at all for their slot, their performances of oldies such as Starbucks, I Love Lake Tahoe and Old Folks were as good and as animated as the day they were released. The floppy hair and naivety of youth may have been absent, but A worked just as well without. Also, seeing original bassist and Radio rock-king Daniel P Carter back in his rightful place leaping about on stage was a joy to behold. Another nice surprise was that briefly scanning the crowd, I was not met with a sea of youthful faces and fresh piercings, but huge groups of those in their mid 20s and 30s, all embracing this hugely self-indulgent wave of nostalgia. To top off what had already been a brilliant set, the inevitable set-closer of Nothing was made that bit more intense, fun and, well, Welsh, with the sudden unexpected presence of The Blackout vocalist Sean Smith. To say the collaboration was anything short of amazing would be a huge understatement. Riding on a high, I headed back over to the main stage to catch the sharply dressed Kids In Glass Houses (3/5). While I fully understand that they’re popular and they have a lot of young, dedicated fans, it didn’t quite hit the mark with me. Sure, they had fun, bouncy, vaguely electro-inspired rock songs made for dancing, but for all their posturing and nice little verses, it never quite built to anything.

With lineups like this, Merthyr will fast become a stalwart of the Welsh music scene and I wish it all the very best of luck. It’s fun, cosy, amazingly cheap and always a cracker. Roll on Merthyr Rock 2013!

Anchors – Lost At The Bottom Of The World

Lost At The Bottom Of The World is the second album from Australian punkers Anchors. The broadly pop-punk band from Melbourne was founded in 2008 and released their first album, called Bad Juju, in 2010. The second album is in many ways a continuation of their first, staying true to their sound but also showing signs of development and further experimentation.

Anchors is a band with much more in common with the punk of the 80’s than most of the pop-punk bands that have circulated in the past decade. They describe their songs as “life songs” rather than songs about love or even politics. They’re not trying to rally for political reform, they’re just sick of what society has to offer and pissed at the rest of us for conforming. Punk as it should be, right?

The album opens with intro Death Rattle and this can be seen as a statement of intent from the band, bringing together 43 seconds of fast paced drums and infectiously catchy yet also powerful guitars, ripping straight into the first full length songEverything’s Amazing And Nobody’s Happy.The fast paced drums typical of punk songs and catchy guitars continue seamlessly from the intro, but now we get to hear the vocalist Brett too and he doesn’t disappoint, delivering aggressive and intense vocals.

With its repetitive feel you could be forgiven if after the first minute or so you felt tempted to skip to the next song, but if you did you would make a big mistake. The bridge of the song shows off the bands hardcore side, the beat slowing and the guitar taking pride of position (I challenge you to listen without headbanging along!).

As if to show that they didn’t discover their more hardcore side by accident, Tour Dogs, the third full length song on the album, hits in and delivers another fast paced track, but one which is both catchy and heavy in equal measures. It features two solos which add a more melodic feel to the song and album more generally, showing off the band’s depth and talent more than some of their more traditional sounding songs do.

Safety First, Then Teamwork comes along in the form of a big, aggressive middle finger to someone who remains nameless. Brimming with pure hatred, Brett aims his lyrics at the target: ”’cause I can’t stand a single thing about you, I can’t believe that anybody likes you!”. Perhaps they aren’t the most eloquent lyrics ever, but punk hardly ever tries to be poetic and the song gets the point across very clearly. The upbeat guitars send slightly mixed messages though, making listeners sing-along happily to Anchors’ greatest “fuck you”.

Another highlight on the album is From Miles Above which has a lot in common with Tour Dogs. Both bring hardcore riffs to the table along with the consistently strong vocals – lead and backup. There is a noticeable divergence though, where Tour Dogsfeatures the punk-y guitar riffs, From Miles Above provides fans with a bit of no nonsense melodic hardcore – definitely moshpit worthy.

The album does have its lower points though. It’s hard to see how Lazarus Sign adds anything new to the album, just sounding like a mash-up of everything that has come before it. Grimes is another song that brings déjà vu with it, reminiscent of Safety First, Then Teamwork in sound and lyrical content.

As the album draws to a close Anchors seem to forget themselves, producing a song which puts the pop in pop-punk called New Limits. This isn’t in itself a bad thing and the song may even be one of the best on the album. It is much more slowly paced, meaning Brett has a chance to try to show off more of his vocal range as the song builds to a powerful crescendo. But for a band that prides themselves on their angry anti-conformist songs it seems a little confused.

As a complete album there’s no doubting its quality and Lost At The Bottom Of The World is sure to help Anchors break out of Australia and establish more of an international fan base. There is still room for improvement though and hopefully we can expect a third album (if and when it comes) to be even better.

3.5 out of 5 high fives!