Despite not updating LBEMD recently, I continued with my work for local paper the Portsmouth News throughout 2011. Here’s a few of the reviews I’ve done for them:

Katy B – Portsmouth Pyramids

You have to give a round of applause to Croydon’s BRIT school – they sure know how to pick impressive young artists. Adele, Jessie J, Amy Winehouse, Leona Lewis and Imogen Heap read as quite impressive alumni (apart from Jessie J – you can take her back).

Katy B is yet another graduate of the school but her music making began from outside of the institution and it shows. Her championing of pirate-turned-legit grime/funky station Rinse FM is an obvious influence on her dub-lite pop, separating her from the Lilys and Jessies of the pop music world.

Tonight, she performed at the Portsmouth Pyramids to a sold out crowd. Her new record, On A Mission, was released to critical acclaim and the whole set was dedicated to her debut album (excluding set opener Louder, strangely missing from the record).

She doesn’t have a fantastic stage presence but her band as a collective manage to give her the boost she needs to propel her soft but ultimately dance-inducing vocals through the saxophone, bass, trumpet, percussion and synth.

This girl has a very bright future if she just keeps on the same musical path. Congratulations, Katy – you’ve hit the big time.

Bring Me The Horizon – Southampton Guildhall

It would be fair to say that – like them or not – Bring Me The Horizon are the UK’s biggest extreme metal export. The release of new album ‘There is a Hell Believe Me I’ve Seen It…” has divided fans but ultimately raised them to the top of UK metal pyramid.

It’s not very often that an extreme metal band plays a venue like the Southampton Guildhall and it’s even rarer that the gig sells out within a matter of days. One of the reasons behind the tickets being shifting faster than you can say “breakdowns” is the incredibly strong support bill of Parkway Drive, Architects and The Devil Wears Prada.

However, it’s unfortunate that the run-of-the-mill pop-metal from the latter two bands, especially the once-great Architects, puts a dampener on the beginning stages of the gig. Parkway Drive, on the other hand, were absolutely incredible and showed a ruthlessness and intensity that Architects could learn from.

Credit to Architects’ drummer, though – he replaced Matt Nichols of BMTH at very short notice and played the vast majority of BMTH’s set. Nonetheless, the phrase‘Heavy Metal Boyband’ sprung to mind throughout the headliner’s set. Fun but disposable faux-metal.

Whitechapel – Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms

After the increasingly prevalent shallow-deathcore trend popularised in the modern age by UK bands like Asking Alexandria and Bring Me The Horizon, sometimes you just need three burly groups from across the Atlantic on stage bringing the pain.

This is exactly what Impending Doom (who hit the UK for the first time), The Acacia Strain and headliners Whitechapel deliver tonight to a packed Wedgewood Rooms.

“This is negative music,” bellows Vincent Bennett, vocalist of The Acacia Strain, and he couldn’t be more correct. After a bad day at work, college or school, there is nothing better than listening to the intense guttural rage brought by these three groups to release pent-up aggression.

The sheer vocal range and brutality of this extreme metal trifecta makes a change from the tinny shrieks heard from inferior metal bands as the depth and power exuded by these groups rocks 300-odd south coast metalheads.

Whitechapel, despite having three guitarists, don’t capitalise on their increased sound but it still makes for a crushing night. The band airs new tracks from their latest release, A New Era of Corruption, and the crowd laps it up. All in all, a heavy night.

Chase and Status – Southampton Guildhall

It’s no secret that drum and bass duo Chase and Status took a different direction after their impressive debut album. Following in the footsteps of rock/d’n’b crossover act Pendulum, the twosome have achieved the adoration of a mainstream audience, turning their back on the underground faithful.

If increasing their profile and achieving global success was their target then this reviewer, and a capacity Southampton Guildhall, cannot help but give the boys a round of applause for reaching their goal.

Their music is incredibly throwaway and cannot hold a candle to peers like Shy FX or DJ Marky & XRS, but there is something undeniably catchy about their crossover tunes being played at 1,000 decibels. It’s the sort of volume that this genre of music deserves, compared to a weak sound system in a dingy student nightclub.

The duo bring a decent stage show, consisting of five screens and an incredible drum set, for the opening night of the tour. The vast majority of their output has guest vocalists who either sing on stage or make a pre-recorded video appearance on the screens.

If incredibly bassy breakdowns are your thing, then grab a ticket for their gig at Portsmouth Guildhall in October.

Feeder – Portsmouth Pyramids

Strolling out to Ennio Morricone’s The Good The Bad and The Ugly theme, Feeder come prepped to quick draw a bucket load of feel-good anthems to a sold out Pyramids Centre.

That’s one of the best things about the UK rock quartet. They have a frankly absurd amount of sing-a-long tunes and the vast majority of them get an airing tonight.  Bands who have been touring for a long time tend to omit some of the classics but not our Feeder. If you don’t find yourself singing your heart out to Just A Day, Just The Way I’m Feeling, Lost & Found among many others then you must have been living under a rock for the past 20 years.

Along with the classics, tunes from current album Renegades make an appearance. Call Out and Down To The River stand up very well against anthemic singles like Buck Rogers and Come Back Around proving that the band can still make hit singles like they used to.

They even throw Breed, a Nirvana cover, at the end of the set for good measure. Feeder are Portsmouth regulars and, judging by the crowd reaction, they’ll be gasping for them to come back soon.

Periphery – Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms

This tour marks ‘djent’-metallers Periphery’s first foray into the UK scene. Lead guitarist Misha Mansoor and his genre-defying cohorts have built up a phenomenal fanbase stateside so it only seems fair that they let Britain have a slice of their brand of extreme metal.

Coming along for the ride are UK acts Monuments and Tesseract, two more djent-based bands, which makes the tour name ‘The League of Extraordinary Djentlemen’ seem quite apt.

And extraordinary it was. Monuments and Tesseract were both fantastic, with Tesseract’s ‘Deception’ and ‘The Impossible’ proving to be a highlight. The lead singer of the latter sounds even better live than he does in the studio.

Periphery’s task as the headlining band is made slightly difficult thanks to one of their guitarists pulling out due to injury earlier in the tour, but the fill-in does a great job. The band only have one studio LP to date so the majority of their set revolves around their debut.

Despite this, the band put on a great show. Songs like Buttersnips and Icarus Lives! set the venue alight and I can only see ‘djent’ becoming more and more popular within the metal scene.

Holy shit.

When it comes to bass and guitar, I love all things virtuoso. Ex-Racer X and current Mr Big guitarist Paul Gilbert is one of my heroes, as avid LBEMD readers will already know. In the modern age, the unstoppable rise of tech-death metal bands and other technically proficient genres has harboured a new breed of guitarist – one that transcends time signatures and has to be rhythmically perfect 100% of the time.

A lot of this can be put down to Sumerian Records – however, that is a whole different blog entry. Or, if you’d like a quick rundown on why tech-death is so popular, check out one of my previous entries.

I digress – so let’s focus on the man in the video above, another one of these Sumerian-signed, technically outstanding guitarists. He is Evan Brewer, the brand new bassist for The Faceless (can you guess which label they are on?) and fully fledged bass expert.

And what a bassist this man is. He uses two basses (two!!!) to play the start of Currency, one of the songs from his new album ‘Alone’ – released on Sumerian, of course – and the remainder of the record follows in much the same fashion. Brewer claims that everything you hear on the record is the product of a bass guitar(s) only, a staggering claim when you consider the variety of tones and buzzes found.

As a bass guitarist myself, I find my jaw constantly on the floor when worshipping at the altar of Brewer. The sheer technicality and precision he employs to make a catchy rhythm is nothing short of astounding and, to be perfectly honest, he has to be up there with Sean Malone, Tony Choy and Alex Webster as one of the best DM bassists. It comes as no surprise that he’s worked with another modern virtuoso, the marvellous Tosin Abasi who currently provides the beating heart to instrumentalists Animals As Leaders, in former tech-metalcore giants Reflux.

It is an absolute pleasure to listen to Alone. Trying to absorb all the intricacies of the album on the first listen is impossible due to the layer upon layer of textured, toned bass slaps.  Hopefully this guy tours the UK soon or, at the very least, brings The Faceless over for another UK jaunt as they totally rock my shit too.

Oh, hello.

It’s been around six months since I last updated Less Bright Eyes More Deicide. Since that final update where I couldn’t even manage to finish the top ten albums of 2010, I’ve changed jobs, I’ve changed cities and I’ve changed my home. Essentially, a lot has happened in the last half a year and I feel I haven’t been able to dedicate the time to LBEMD that it deserves. So, rather than write pointless updates that I don’t enjoy writing, I just gave the whole project a rest.

I currently work hard as a brand journalist for a marketing firm, Vertical Leap. After a long day at the office, the last thing I wanted to do was come home and write about music – a medium that I felt I was falling out of love with. To put it plainly, I just wasn’t interested in writing about my favourite new artist or album. I was sick to death about analysing every chord, comparing and contrasting artists and reviewing new albums. On top of that, I just didn’t have the ability to listen to lots of new music or have the time to interview my favourite artists.

In my six month absence, interviewing was the part of LBEMD that I missed most. My favourite part of writing for this blog has been talking to my favourite artists – Gojira, Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip, Andrew WK, Joshua Radin, Alexisonfire, Devildriver – and I couldn’t be more proud of myself for organising every single interview with no external help.

As I recalled travelling to London to interview the dub K and remembered chatting casually to Joshua Radin at the back of the Wedgewood Rooms in Portsmouth, a twinge of sadness entered my soul. I missed those days. So, today, the 27^th June 2011, felt like the perfect day to revive LBEMD from the ashes. Just thinking back to all the interviews I’ve conducted and all of the albums I have reviewed…it would be a waste to leave these in a digital limbo. I guess that implies I’ve forced myself to come back here, but that isn’t the case. I can’t explain it – I just had a sudden urge to come back here.

As I enter a new era with LBEMD, I don’t think I’ll have the time to conduct interviews, nor will I be writing with the frequency that I did one year ago. Nevertheless, I am bringing the blog back to life and will be updating whenever I feel inspired.

I’m sure you’ve noticed the swanky new logo and the flashy design, too. After all, a new era deserves a new design.

Either way, I hope you enjoy the new look LBEMD as much as I will enjoy updating the blog with new features, thoughts and mindless rambling from yours truly.

Oh, and before I forget…

5. Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

4. Solution .45 – For Aeons Past

3. Deftones – Diamond Eyes

2. Gorillaz – Plastic Beach

1. Big Boi – Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty

So here we are. The final ten. It really has been a fantastic year for music. Flying Lotus, Curren$y, Sufjan Stevens and Yeasayer all could have easily made the top ten with their efforts but here are at least 5 albums, each with a very basic blurb, that stood in their way.

10) Lissie – Catching a Tiger

Lissie and her band have had a whirlwind of a year by industry standards. From being an absolute nobody in January to selling out Shepherds Bush Empire, supporting Joshua Radin, garnering the kudos from…errr… Perez Hilton and making a new best bud in Ellie Goulding in 12 calendar months is hugely impressive. However, if you shift all the media attention to one side, you are left with the bare bones: a cute, blonde girl, a guitar and her band. No strings, no synths, no strings attached. This is reflected neatly in her music. There’s no deep meaning or hidden context to these sweet love songs. They’re simple, they’re fun, they’re catchy and they’re something you can listen to without analysing each note every step of the way. Not only has her single ‘When I’m Alone’ made the iTunes #1 Single of the Year but her album, Catching A Tiger, has made the lessbrighteyes top ten albums of 2010. Which one is the more humbling accolade? That’s obvious. Let’s hope this commercial success doesn’t go to the label’s head – nobody wants to see Lissie ft. David Guetta.

9) Ihsahn – After

If you discount the infamous Varg Vikernes then Ihsahn is probably one of the most recognisable names in black metal. He is certainly the one to cover himself in the most glory (or the least controversy – take your pick) and he has left a lasting legacy that all music fans can be thankful for in the guise of Emperor. But would he be able to traverse the dodgy precipice of band member to solo artist? The answer was a resounding yes. His first two releases,The Adversary and Angl, are solid records in their own right, but After is his magnum opus. Check out my review of After right here on this blog.

8 ) Alcest – Écailles de lune

Another entry into the top ten for progressive black metal. Neige, the sole member of Alcest, isn’t as well known as Ihsahn, nor will the name Alcest ever send as big a shockwave through black metal as Emperor did, but a direct comparison to Emperor would be naive. Alcest contain all the musically experimental elements that make Ihsahn’s solo albums so successful but also add a facet of post-rocky/shoegaze goodness. For more on Écailles de lune, check my review here.

7) Royksopp – Senior

Finally, Royksopp release something that can stand proud next to their debut. Sophomore release The Understanding was good but not great and Junior, the first of these dual albums, built upon the happy, eccentric foundations that The Understanding set but never quite reached the quality that Melody AM set the benchmark for. Senior brings back elements of those warm, melancholy instrumentals while still retaining the catchy hooks that made songs like Eple and Royksopp’s Night Out so popular. However, Senior is also a lot darker than their debut. If Melody AM is the sound of you casually drifting down a freshly powdered ski-slope with the sun shining then Senior is the sound of you casually drifting down a freshly powdered ski-slope…in the pitch black. Unlike previous albums, there is no Robyn, no Karen Dreijer, no Erlend Oye; just you, Royksopp and a lot of reflection. If you let yourself be absorbed by the Norwegian duo’s introspective ambiance then there is a lot to find here.

6) Janelle Monae – The ArchAndroid

Oh Janelle. The lovely Janelle Monae. So far ahead of Kesha, Katy Perry and other female pop artists of that ilk it’s untrue.  When you hear that someone has signed to P. Diddy’s label, Bad Boy Records, it’s fairly easy to construct an image of that artist in your head. But Diddy, along with help from Big Boi, have unearthed an absolute gem. A real soulful, funky gem. A gem that even your mother would like. That’s the best thing about The ArchAndroid. On the surface, it’s a collection of funky, very well produced R&B/soul songs but behind this exterior is an outrageously huge concept that even a veteran of the music industry would find difficult to assemble. When you’re shuffling along to Tightrope or doing a little air guitar during THAT bit in Cold War, the thought that the album “involves the fictional tale of Cindi Mayweather, a messianic android sent back in time to free the citizens of Metropolis from The Great Divide, a secret society that uses time-travel to suppress freedom and love” never even registers. This is what makes The ArchAndroid surpass your Kelly Rowlands, your Ushers, your Ne-Yos. Incredible depth from a genuinely talented artist. Oh, and it’s her DEBUT LP. The ArchAndroid is just a mindblowing vision an artist that you, your brother, your sister and your mum can love.

As 2010 draws to a close, it’s about that time where reputable music websites (and some dodgy ones too) release their end of year best-ofs. Anyone with a brain knew that Yeezy would have got the #1 at Pitchfork but Emeralds’ Do You Know I’m Here? was a surprise winner at DrownedInSound. Janelle Monae took the top spot in The Guardian and Iron Maiden stand firm at the top of…errr…Metal Hammer’s list. But sack all those websites off. I know why you’re here. This is THE definitive list of the best albums of 2010. I’m going to kick off with a run down of 25 to 11 and then go into a bit more detail in a future post for albums 10-6 and the final five. So, without further ado…

25) Paul Gilbert – Fuzz Universe

24) Salem – King Night

23) Tesseract – Concealing Fate EP

22) Son of Aurelius – The Farthest Reaches

21) Joe Bonamassa  - Black Rock

20) Kvelertak  - Kvelertak

19) Male Bonding – Nothing Hurts

18) Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross – Social Network OST

17) Anais Mitchell – Hadestown

16) Beach House – Teen Dream

15) All That Remains – For We Are Many

14) Flying Lotus – Cosmogramma

13) Sufjan Stevens – The Age of Adz

12) Curren$y – Pilot Talk II

11) Yeasayer – Odd Blood

I’ve got two double page spreads in the December edition of Guide 2 (available in venues, cinemas, pubs…etc) all around the Portsmouth area. What has me excited is the fact that one of the features is actually the cover story. Something I’ve written is the cover feature on a magazine distributed all around the Portsmouth area. Things like this remind me why I got into journalism in the first place. Also, I got paid for doing it. Getting that paper, paper, paper.

If you can’t get a copy, then you can check the E-edition of the magazine here:

http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk//launch.aspx?pbid=898dcbba-75b6-419a-989f-aa69bed7582e

or here are a couple of screenshots:

I also have a piece in this Friday’s Guide so watch out for that too. I’ll post it up here once it is published. Like Tony Stark says in Iron Man 2, “It’s good to be back!”

Another review for the Portsmouth News.

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It’s hard to believe it’s been 15 years since Deftones’ debut album, Adrenaline, was released.

The mix of chaotic riffing and urban-influenced screamed vocals sounds cringe-worthy on paper but, if we fast forward to 2010, it is songs like Birthmark and 7 Words that garner the biggest crowd reactions of the night.

Deftones return to the UK on the back of their latest release, Diamond Eyes, and they play all but three songs from the new album along with many more from White Pony, Around The Fur, Adrenaline and the self-titled album.

However, there were no songs from Saturday Night Wrist, along with usual crowd favourites like Hexagram and Headup.

This didn’t put a downer on the night, though. Chino, notorious for his dodgy live performances, was very good bar a shaky start on opening song Rocket Skates.

It would be nice if Deftones played a few lesser known songs like Mascara or Mx instead of the dull newer tunes such as Risk and You’ve Seen The Butcher but it was still a great show.

Devildriver are a band that works hard all the time. Period. It’s a fact. You can’t argue it. It’s indisputable. They’ve pretty much toured 15 months, give or take a few weeks, the ass off their latest record, Pray for Villains and are just about to release a new one, Beast, early next year. Naturally the guys were hard at work when I went along to the Bournemouth o2 Academy to have a chat with Jeff Kendrick about the UK tour, the new record, working with Mark Lewis, the critical reception for Pray for Villains and Jeff’s top 5 Devildriver songs. Or top 6.

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LBE: So, you kicked off the UK tour on November 5^th in Newcastle, how has the tour been so far?

Jeff: It’s been great.  The shows have been awesome, the venues have been awesome, the other bands are awesome, the crowds have been awesome. Coming to the UK is amazing for us; we’re really grateful.

The UK has really embraced Devildriver with open arms; your appearances at the Download festival always go down a storm. Do you think you’ll ever go back to Download?

I’m sure we will. We’d be stoked to.

You guys never seem to stop touring – you’re always on the road somewhere – do you get any free time at all?

As far as going home? We were just off for six weeks before this tour so that’s been a lot of time and we’ll be off for the holidays too. It comes in waves because you can tour and make records but there are also periods where you can’t tour the same place 100 times – you just get burned out. You have to be selective on how you do things like that. It makes it interesting because it’s never the same. It makes it hard for everyone at home because things always change and there is a different schedule. For us, it’s interesting because you’re home for this and then next year you’re not.

First time in Bournemouth, isn’t it?

Hmmm, I’m not sure…maybe not? Maybe with Lamb of God? I think we’ve been to Portsmouth before.

Yeah you have, at the Wedgewood Rooms.

Yeah that’s right! I think it’s the first time we’ve been here then. I can’t wait. The venue is beautiful.

With the announcement of your new album, Beast, this must signal the end of the touring cycle for Pray for Villains?

Yeah, this is pretty much it.

What’s been the most memorable thing about the Pray for Villains tour?

Probably Download. We’ve had a bunch of good tours in Australia with Lamb of God. Soundwave festival was good. A lot of good stuff but also in the middle of the record cycle we made another record so that’s also special to me as well. By the time the new record comes out, it’s going to be 18 months – almost a month to the day from the old record – versus coming off, then doing a record then releasing it.

So you started writing Beast on tour?

Yep, started writing it on tours and so on. Everyone’s writing so we just compile the material together and we have a LOT.

You would do this on the tour bus?

More places like this [we’re at the venue, Bournemouth o2 Academy – Ash] on a Mac. Mike [Spreizter, guitars] has Cubase, I just got Logic. Mike is a very pro recorder, sound engineer, whatever you wanna call it.

You’ve released four albums so far, so was it difficult, musically and lyrically, not to retread old ground writing for the fifth album?

That’s a good question. I think yes because we’ve always been one of those bands who are very conscious of the material that’s out there, we’re very conscious of our own material and we don’t want it to repeat itself – we’re very conscious of that. That can happen to bands, I don’t think it happens to us.

How do you continue to make your material fresh?

Just play all the time. You become a better musician and then your song writing becomes better. That’s part of the process. You spend time working on it, practising and honing your craft, you’re going to get better.

Is this what makes Beast fresh? How did you avoid making a Pray for Villains Mk II?

I think Pray for Villains, as far as song writing goes, is one of the most experimental things we’ve done, especially with the vocals. I think it turned out great, it’s a heavy as hell record but it’s a record that some people are unsure of their opinions on. It got great reviews – it got a 9 on Blabbermouth. Everyone has improved dramatically in all aspects. We write better songs, the solos are better, the drumming is superior. I think it’s a heavier album than Pray for Villains and not quite as experimental. There are parts of the record that are experimental like Pray for Villains was but it’s more of a balls-out, heavy record.

Dez [Fafara, vocals] has gone on record to say it’s more in the vein of Last Kind Words. Would you agree with that?

Yeah I think so. We don’t really end up repeating ourselves but we always take influence from those previous records. You listen to a band because they have a definitive style. Once they put out a certain amount of records, they have all these albums and you’re like ‘I know who that band is’. Without repeating yourself, every record you do stays with you and influences you on your further material. There’s stuff, like on the first record, that someone will end up writing and is influenced by that. We just generally write what comes to us and we obsess over it forever and we’re always recording and always writing. We put as much effort into it as we possibly can. The new record is basically done today – it’s completely mastered, mixed, everything, DONE – so we’re gonna be delivering that and we’ll go on from there.

How much input did your producer, Mark Lewis, have on Beast?

A lot. A lot of good input. Great guitar player, great engineer, he’s just great at his job. He knows metal really well and he knows songs and he definitely helped. A lot of our material, when we write and when we go and record, it is as we demoed. We demo everything before we go into a recording studio and a lot of times we basically don’t want to replicate it. We record demos that are full length, like an album. They get about as far as they can go and then we go into the studio and do it all over again.

Have you got any specific examples of when Mark has helped you out?

Guitar solos, man. He was such a big help and he’s a great player. We would just sit on guitar and work stuff out, he’s fantastic. That was a huge thing for me personally and he had a lot of great ideas. There were parts of songs where, for example, maybe we would just cut out a pre-chorus of a song and then have it appear later in the song to give it an interesting dynamic. The gear we got to use at Sonic Ranch is about the best in the world. We had the best of everything to use; Gibson 50^th Anniversary guitars, $9,000 Kendrick amps…it was great.

I’m doing a running feature where I ask a musician their top 5 songs to play live, so what are your top 5 DevilDriver songs to play live?

I Could Care Less, Meet the Wretched, End of the Line, a new song that we’re playing off Villains called Forgiveness is a Six Gun and…trying to think what else….Pray for Villains is pretty fun to play.

What make these ones so different?

It’s a challenge, kind of. I don’t like to play something I don’t have to think about, I like to be into it. Just the response, the energy, the parts I end up playing, how I feel about those parts, how comfortable I am with those parts. Or not comfortable.

There are no Last Kind Words’ songs on your list. Any reason?

Actually, I would have to say Not All Who Wander Are Lost is pretty fun to play because we get to trade off on solos and that’s not something we do all the time. Five songs is too tough of a list to make, it has to be a few more. Like six!

What are DevilDriver’s plans after this UK tour? Anything booked?

We have a three week mainland Europe tour after this and then we have Soundwave in February. We have a bunch of other stuff too but I just can’t say anything yet.

Can’t say anything?

Nope! You’ll hear about it, believe me, it’ll be pretty good to share it.

So basically just on the road, all of the time?

Yeah!

Here’s a brace of gig reviews I wrote for the Portsmouth News.

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The annual Imperial Never Say Die! tour hits the UK once more and this time Aussie metalcore quintet Parkway Drive top the bill.

The Never Say Die! tour takes a number of alternative genres and mixes them together to make one huge heavy metal pot.

War From A Harlot’s Mouth represent the deathcore side whereas Emmure, We Came As Romans and UK act Your Demise stand up for hardcore and post-hardcore.

These bands are entertaining but perhaps don’t do enough to make themselves stand out from the hordes of hardcore/metal bands currently on the touring circuit.

Bleeding Through ramped up the volume with some vicious metalcore, but this left main support act Comeback Kid feeling a little out of place.

Their punk rock seemed a little tame compared to what the audience has heard previously, but maybe it was a ploy to make everyone think that upcoming headliners Parkway Drive were the loudest, heaviest band on the bill.

If it was a deliberate tactic then it definitely worked.

Parkway Drive completely blew every other band out of the water.

The lead guitar was perhaps a little buried in the mix (the solo during Sleepwalker was barely audible), but it was the breakdowns that everyone was fired up for and they didn’t disappoint.

Dead Man’s Chest and Idols And Anchors sounded especially impressive.

Lead singer Winston McCall mentioned it was the first time Parkway Drive had visited Portsmouth – and based on last night’s performance, it certainly won’t be the last.

Link to article: here

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Last year’s Eastpak Antidote tour, which Alexisonfire headlined, was a huge success so it’s only right that they return to Portsmouth to slay another crowd of 600 strong fans.

UK supporting bands The Computers, whose frontman decides to hop over the barrier and play in the middle of the crowd, and Chickenhawk warm up the crowd nicely.

Alexisonfire make the trip from Canada to the UK on the back of their new EP, Dog’s Blood.

The title track of this new release is played along with select cuts from Old Crows/Young Cardinals, Crisis, Watch Out!, the self-titled Alexisonfire and even a little known track from The Switcheroo Series called Charlie Sheen vs Henry Rollins. I wonder what the Black Flag frontman would have to say about that.

Unfortunately, this reviewer’s favourite song, Born and Raised, isn’t played but you can’t have it all.

The band seem really on form and, most of all, seemed to be enjoying themselves on stage. Dallas Green’s voice could melt the iciest of hearts whereas George Pettit’s gravely screams can send shivers down your spine.

A career spanning setlist coupled with the obvious delight the band have on stage make this a gig to remember.

It’s been over a year since Alexisonfire’s last album, Old Crows/Young Cardinals, so I feel like it’s time that they released some new songs. Oh, wait. They have? Of course they have! It’s a new EP called Dog’s Blood. I caught up with Jordan to talk about releasing an EP instead of an LP, their current UK tour, his top 5 Alexisonfire songs and why we might be waiting a long time for a new record.

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LBE: You kicked the UK tour off in Cardiff on Nov 4^th. How was the show for you?

Jordan: It was great! It’s great to be back in the UK. We were in mainland Europe for a week and a half or so then had a day off to take the ferry and to get to Cardiff. The first show was last night [Nov 4^th] and it was unbelievable.

Your new release, Dog’s Blood, is an EP. You don’t really get too many established bands releasing EPs these days.

That’s true. The songs that we had left over from the recording of Old Crows/Young Cardinals didn’t really fit with the whole realm and sound of the record. We had three or four songs left over and we really liked them and didn’t want to throw them away and waste them. So we had a couple of days off in the summer and we booked some studio time and we just kinda went in and recorded four songs that we had. That’s pretty much it; it turned into Dog’s Blood. We were like, ‘hmmm this sounds pretty good, didn’t take very long and it’s been over a year since we released the full length [Old Crows/Young Cardinals]’.

Why didn’t you want to put them on another full length album?

We’ve always had an 11-song record and those four songs in particular didn’t really fit. They just sounded a bit heavier and weirder than the majority of our songs. It’s one of those things where it’s like we’re not going to wait because who knows how long it’s going to be before we record another album, we never know, right? So we thought we might as well just put it out now.

You decided to use a different producer, Jon Drew, for Dog’s Blood and not stick with your longtime producer, Julius Butty. Why is that?

There was no real reason. I’m sure his availability was…he’s a really busy guy, right? And, like I said, we didn’t really have a lot of time to do this so we knew Jon Drew, a guy from Toronto, who has produced for bands like Fucked Up and The Arkells. We liked the stuff that we’ve heard from him and he works close to home. It’s one of those things that’s a no-brainer. It’s just four quick songs, we had already worked all of the bugs out of them and I don’t think we really wanted to get them really over-produced. They are pretty raw sounding songs. We just threw into the studio; it was a really small studio, really neat though.

Where is the studio?

It’s in Kensington Market in Toronto. It’s in the middle of Chinatown. You would never know the studio was there – it’s in a back alley of this weird warehouse. When I first stepped foot in there I was like, “holy shit, I would have never known this was here!” It was really fun.

I take it you don’t usually record in this place in Kensington. Where do you normally go to record?

We’ve gone all over. With Crisis, we recorded in Mississauga at a place called Metalworks. A lot of bands have recorded there. Our latest record, Old Crows/Young Cardinals, we did in Vancouver at a place called…um….errm…what’s it called…..starts with an A….can’t remember right now. Ha! But really rad bands have recorded there too like AC/DC did Razor’s Edge there. It’s a renowned studio so we were really excited to go there.

Are the style of songs on Dog’s Blood a prelude for the new album or are they completely miscellaneous, off-the-wall recordings?

I have no idea what the next record will sound like. We never really know because we don’t think about what it’s going to sound like. We get into writing mode and then whatever comes out is what we get. I think the next record will probably be different from Dog’s Blood because everything we’ve done up until now has been different from the previous. I don’t think it will sound like Dog’s Blood.

Have you started thinking about the new record at all?

It’s a little too premature. We’re always thinking about it but we haven’t really talked about it in great detail yet. We’ve been out for quite a while now and we get home around Christmas time. We’ll probably take January off and then February we’ll probably start writing again. I’d like to say the new record would be out hopefully this time two years from now.

Fingers crossed! You joined the band after the original drummer, Jesse, left. How did you come to pick up the sticks for Alexisonfire?

I’ve known the guys for years. My old band and Alexis toured together years ago and we used to share buses on Warped Tour so we knew each other really well. When their drummer left, they knew that I was available because my band had just broken up so they just gave me a shout. I learned all the songs by playing along with my iPod. That was it. They came home from the Rise Against tour and we practiced every day for five days then we hit the road for eight weeks.

So it wasn’t difficult to join because you already had these pre-existing relationships?

We were good friends from before so it was really easy for both of us.

What would you say are your top 5 Alexisonfire songs to play live? You can’t say ‘all of them’ because I’m not having that! You’ve got to have a top 5.

My favourite right now is The Northern. There is something about it; it’s a lot of fun to play. It’s fairly simple in the drumming department; there is just something really heavy about it.

That’s number one nailed down – now for two, three, four and five!

In no particular order from now, because The Northern is probably number one, but in no particular order…we started playing some old songs lately. We play this one song, Keep It On Wax, we haven’t played it for quite a while. I forgot how much fun it was. I’m having a blast playing that one. I’d have to say another big one would be Charlie Sheen vs. Henry Rollins which we have also resurrected from the dead.

Have you sorted out the setlist for tonight? Does it change every time you go to a city?

Sometimes it changes, sometimes it doesn’t. It depends on the how the flow of the set is going. We’ll do a set then automatically we’ll be like, ‘oh there is a lull at this part’ so we’ll have to change everything over. The one that we’ve got, we’ve been playing for a couple of days now and it seems to be working pretty well. We’re still swapping things here and there but for the most part it stays the same.

Okay, so Keep It On Wax, Charlie Sheen vs. Henry Rollins…let’s see…probably Happiness by the Kilowatt as that is a really fun one to play. Another one is Rough Hands. I like playing Rough Hands a lot too. All the slow ones. Probably because they don’t exhaust me as much. I’m really lazy.

What do you think the future holds for Alexisonfire after this tour?

Who knows? We still love playing music together so we’ve got that going for us. We’re still buddies. I’m actually looking forward to some time off. It’s gonna be nice, it’s been a long time since we’ve had an extended holiday.

Have you got anything booked after the UK tour?

Yeah we do, we go on for about two weeks here and there. My other band is playing a few shows so even when I’m home I book shows so I’ve got a couple of shows there.

What’s your other band called?

It’s called Hunter. It’s really fast, metally, hardcore stuff. It’s fun. After that, Alexis starts up again and we fly to Vancouver and start a cross-Canada run which leads us up to December 19^th. Then that’s it, we’re off for Christmas.

Anything can happen after that.

Anything can happen!