Look, A Band - If You Like To Dance

I do like to dance, normally, I'll admit, but the band name sounds like a bit of a challenge. Are you saying I'll want to dance more when I listen to you? 'Cause that's a challenge, my friend.

Although I'm only one and a half minutes into Sleep, the first song on the soundcloud of these guys - who are apparently based in Manchester (best place to be) and influenced, amongst other things, by 'the wicked ways of women' (I'll choose to take that in the amusing way). I'd say that If You Like To Dance are rising to said challenge reasonably well. I was expecting rock or pop punk or something from the band name, but I suppose this sort of electronic, dancier music is more obvious. It's quite effectively summed up in their Facebook bio - "the sound of two lads with guitars and a laptop". I have only ever heard about thirty seconds of Bloc Party in my lifetime, but so far they've got a similar kind of shouting vocals and slightly frantic feel to the music that makes you imagine training montages or people free-running. Surprisingly enough, Bloc Party are indeed listed as one of their other influences. Who'd have known?

Skin And Bone (above), which they've apparently gotten played on Radio One, is my favourite track so far. It sounds a little bit more melancholy, but melancholy can sound great in a song if you do it right.

They sound a little bit samey at the moment, and perhaps aren't quite my kind of thing, but if you're into alternative dance stuff (had to Wikipedia that), it's definitely worth your time to give them a listen

Twitter / Soundcloud / Facebook / Youtube

Look, A Band - Follow You Home

Just going to say this as a starting point: it makes everything so much easier to find when a band has a site, whether developed, or a facebook page or just a list of places where you can find their music and get hold of tickets. There's been so many bands where I've tried to have a look at them and given up because they make it into a scavenger hunt and, to be honest, if they're some band that I've never heard of before, there's no incentive to go through with it.
So what a relief it is that Follow You Home actually have a website, especially since I need to squeeze this review in between a whole lot of revision stuff that I should have done a while ago.
Who are Follow You Home, then? They're a five-piece made up of "pink-haired uber-vixen" Kayley Busby (vocals), Rich Davis (bass), Nick Ayre (guitar/vocals), Mikey Davis (guitar - and why are there so many bands involving brothers called Mikey . . . ?), and Tom Bradshaw (drums), hailing from Derby, near to, as they call it, "the spiritual home of rock that is Castle Donington". They claim to make something akin to punk,  with references to bands such as Alkaline Trio and Brand New, and with a repeated emphasis on being honest and telling it how it is. We shall see. . .
Save Yourself starts off with awesome guitary stuff (I will learn proper words for this soon). I tend to be a bit skeptical of female singers, because they usually end up being very shrill and annoying as opposed to actually singing, but Kayley's good, although her voice sounds more suited to pop music than rock and punk. I'm not complaining about her using it for punk though, it works perfectly fine here. I actually really like this song, it's very thrashy-about-y.
The next song on their site is Playing With Fire, which starts off with similar awesome guitar stuff, but sounds a bit more bad-ass. In this one, though, I feel like the singing's sort of been squashed into a box, like it's not being allowed the space needed for Kayley to sound really really awesome, which you can tell just by listening that she's capable of.
Anywhere But Home starts much calmer, with just gentle guitars. This one's probably my favourite one so far - all the different parts of the band seem to come together much better in this song. Yes, this is brilliant; I love how it suddenly explodes into guitars and drums and stuff, this is good, yes yes yes. Definitely listening to these guys again. I'm kind of annoyed that I've just missed their tour - apparently they were in soundcontrol back in March.

Facebook / Twitter / Merchandise

Look, A Band - Owls In The Attic

Part of me is intrigued to find out how on earth that band name was thought up, and part of me is a bit worried and wants to ring the RSPCA. However, before we get to that, I'll see if they're actually any good (because having good songs makes me very likely to excuse minor animal abuse).
Apparently mainly influenced by the great Ron Burgundy, they're off to a great start here. Owls In The Attic a 5-piece metalcore band from Nashville, Tennessee (isn't Hannah Montana from there?) consisting of Benny Mueller (vocals), Evan Jensen (drums/vocals), Mike D'Ancona (guitar), Phil Campbell (guitar), and Christopher Baldani (bass), and their collective interests range from romance to Jesus . . . . that's a pretty diverse mix of interests.

They've done a cover of Payphone by Maroon 5, which I'm going to leave till last because I don't want to have Adam Levine's face leering in my mind while I'm trying to form an opinion of the band.
Wow, the start of The Buffalo Song is awesome though, and they definitely know how to scream. There's got to be a lot of sore throats after this song though . . . it's so aggressive, I want to give them a throat lozenge. Let it not be said that they don't put effort in. I think No Dinner For Mike's probably my favourite though, it sounds like anime and being attacked by evil space aliens, in a good way.
This is good music to play when you want to tune everything out, I think. It's very good, very put together, and the kind of music I love listening to. I like the contrast between the screaming and the clean vocals - it sounds great when it's done properly, and Owls In The Attic are doing it properly, especially on Big Fire.
It's a bit like Of Mice & Men, a little bit like Sleeping With Sirens (less so, but I'm feeling it anyway), but still very definitely different. You could pick Owls In The Attic songs out of a line-up of metalcore bands, they're pretty distinguishable. I also love the song titles, like "Only On Tuesdays"; fascinating and a bit worrying, just like the band name.

Now, as a finishing touch, to have a look at their cover of Payphone. Oh wow, yep, yes, definitely yes. Well done, guys, you have done what at first seemed impossible, and you've redeemed a song  that I hated beyond belief. If they'd been playing this every five minutes that I was in Florida last summer, I don't think I would have been anywhere near as irritable. I commend you on your achievement here. I think this has actually replaced No Dinner For Mike as my favourite. This is more amazing than I could have hoped for.

So you should definitely have a look at them - they've managed to make Payphone not just listenable, but pretty awesome, so imagine what their original material's like (their debut EP Contender is already available for purchase). Wow, well done. Just wow.

Facebook / Twitter / Youtube

Look, A Band - Nobody Takes Vegas

Nobody Takes Vegas sounds like the name of some kind of alien warfare film, like Battle L.A. or something.  What they actually are, according to facebook, is "a band that plays songs". They are Nick LaGreca (vocals), Harrison Feuer (guitars), Jack Morrow (guitars), Rob Krug (bass), and Jimmy Kubik (drums and superhero names division), and they're from Long Island. They also play loud rock music. They seem to be pretty chilled out on the information side of things, as opposed to some other bands with more prose than lyrics written out, but that's no problem. More time for music.

I like this stuff a lot. It sounds like The Blackout, and also Funeral For A Friend, but a bit different. It's a bit heavy, a bit sad, a bit angry. I especially like the drums on the start of Riding In Cars With Bears.
Half Dead In Hempstead is the kind of thing I can imagine myself blasting through my (broken) headphones on one of my long walks, while pretending to be in a music video (and plus I like the hand-dance in the youtube video).
Midnight In Nagoya is probably my favourite though, and I wanted to put the actual video in this post, but for some reason the damn site will only access the live videos, which aren't as high quality as the link. It's angry, it's got a little bit of screaming, it sounds like the kind of thing I'd be sat singing along to in the middle of the night while pretending I can play guitar. It's got such pretty lyrics, too; "Can you hear me when all the sounds start to play? While our minds run wild, just open your eyes, with whispers and broken words". I think I must've listened to this song about five times on the trot by now.

But yes, these guys are awesome, really really awesome actually, possibly one of my favourites so far of the bands I've looked at - I would say it's definitely worth your while to give them a listen.

Twitter / Facebook / Bandcamp / Soundcloud / Youtube

Look, A Band - Silver Story

"Silver Story is an up and coming 4 piece rock band from St. Helens!" That's their Twitter bio, and I thought it might be the best way to introduce them here, too - although it says on Facebook that they're from Manchester, which is even better, because Manchester's the best place of all the places. They've been 'masters of debauchery' since 2007, and their political views are listed as "Anarchy!" which is even better.

So far, they sound awesome (given up on not using that word). I especially like the start of Jaded on their Art and Vandals EP. It's very shouty and angry, reminds me of The Cribs a bit. That's followed by My Empire, which has a nice, quite start and then kicks in and gets even nicer (I swear I was taught a wider vocabulary than this, but this music is too good and it's distracting me). It's a bit melancholy, a bit of a kissing-in-the-rain-montage kind of song, but who doesn't like that kind of song?

THE NEXT SONG STARTS WITH BASS. I LIKE BASS. It's also called Of Dreams And Nightmares, and is appropriately, kind of dark, although more action than evil wolves poison-gassing your school (that's one of mine), but still great. To get dark enough for what I was thinking, my speakers would have to be bleeding. There's a bit of darkness there, but in a sort of bad-ass kind of way. I think my favourite song would be Dancefloor, off their Wake Up album.

It's all quite catchy and pop-punk, which is good. I have a lot of time for pop punk type stuff. There's darkness, but it's sort of that hopeful yes-we're-gonna-get-through-this kind of music, and you can't have too much of that, because music gets you through everything. They make the kind of songs you want to sing along to while going on a road trip with the wind blowing through your hair, and then do air drums and then crash because you're supposed to keep your hands on the wheel, you idiot. Watch out, Silver Story are out to kill you in seemingly random accidents.

Oddly enough, they also have some shows coming up, apparently: one on the 30th of March at Dry Bar in Manchester along with various other bands, which I may see if I can attend, and one at Nambucca in London on June the 6th.

Facebook / Twitter / Bandcamp

Look, A Band - Messenger Down

I have been somewhat aware of these guys for a while. I found them on t'internet a while back, and I gave them a listen. I don't remember what I heard, but I must've liked it, because they've made it onto my list of new bands that I'm looking at.
They're an act from North Carolina, consisting of Garrett Foster (vocals), Connor Vogt (guitar), Nick Atwell (bass), and Bryan Scercy (drums), who apparently vary between a range of sounds from hardcore to indie. They're currently working on an eight-track record, The Gentlemen's Guide To Keeping Away From People Like You, which is due out sometime soon over bandcamp and iTunes, with a possible physical release as well.

They're definitely good. Quite melodic, and there's a lot of feeling in their songs. Timing is perhaps something they need to work on though in one or two tracks, because they get a bit out of sync from time to time. A Lie For A Lie (Make Up Your Mind Before I Have To Do This For You) is awesome, and the video is below:

A Lie For A Lie (Make Up Your Mind Before I Have To Do This For You)

A Toast To Someday is quite Fall Out Boy-ish to me, and probably my second favourite of their four available singles and their cover of Panic! At The Disco's The Only Difference Between Martyrdom And Suicide Is Press Coverage - it's a brilliant cover, and I don't usually like covers. Plus it's an awesome song to begin with. My favourite one of their singles happens to be a Christmas song, Come For Christmas, Stay Forever, which automatically means +1 to them, and an extra +10 because it strongly appeals to my Angsty Songs At Christmas thing, and another +5 because it's more in sync than some of the other songs. It's only a little problem, and easily correctable, but one that starts to grate quite quickly.

I do like that they're creative with their music though - there's a bit of piano in there, a bit of an instrument I'm going to say is a violin but I'm not sure (basically everything in the strings section that's not guitar or bass is a violin to me), which is a refreshing change from the normal vocals+guitar+bass+drums formula. I know it works, but sometimes it's nice to switch it about, and Messenger Down have done it properly, and they make full use of the fact that Garrett has an amazing voice.
Interestingly enough, they would like to play at the Vans Warped Tour 2013, and really, I think it would be very nice of you to vote for them, because they're actually pretty good.

Twitter / Bandcamp / Soundcloud / Tumblr / Facebook

Look, A Band - Liar Liar

Excuse me while I get rid of the Taking Back Sunday song that sets off in my head every time I see this band name - although really, reminding people of Taking Back Sunday isn't that bad a place to start.
This is four guys from Sheffield - Joe Daniels (guitar/vocals), Liam Bates (bass/vocals), and Jake Lawton (guitar), and Jack Dudill (drums) - who compare their music to a blend of Blink 182 and You Me At Six, which sounds promising. They've also written their entire Facebook page bio in a rather entertaining third person narrative; "the irrepressible punks emerged with a true declaration of intent . . . melody-drenched choruses so infectious it'll require an exorcist to release them from your head", for example (Edit - it was written by a PR guy, according to the band).

They've actually got some really awesome songs. I can definitely see the All Time Low and New Found Glory in them, and the start of the video for Heart Attack reminds me somewhat of the start of Underdog by You Me At Six. The only disturbing bit is the autotune sound on Joe's vocals, because it's erm . . . it sounds a bit like Finn from Adventure Time, and I'm not quite sure what the need is for it, because when the roboticness is less evident, the vocals are still great.

the video for Heart Attack

They're very good (look, I'm trying very hard to not say 'awesome' all the time), and I will definitely be listening to them again, especially It Doesn't Take A Hero, which is probably my favourite song off their EP, He Said, She Said, which you can get off iTunes now.

I have a load of bands written down to listen to for this particular feature, and a lot of them, to be honest, are kind of shabby and have maybe one song available to listen to. These guys have an EP out already, they actually sound like a band, although maybe not quite at the level their bio would suggest just yet, and they've even got a series of 'yes we are band now' type photos out in railway lines with their hoodies, which is basically an essential for any pop punk band nowadays. But you should definitely listen to them, because they know what they're doing and it doesn't sound like they're going away.

Facebook / Twitter / bandcamp

Look, A Band: Cobalt and the Hired Guns

not sure what's happening here

As with several things, I was first introduced to Cobalt and the Hired Guns by my friend Hannah, because she throws music at people. I did give them a bit of a listen at the time, but I’m going to do it properly now for the purposes of blogging and helping the music industry, and because they're actually awesome.

Thanks to shouting until I was given information about them, according to the Internet, Cobalt and the Hired Guns are Matt Hart (bass, guitar, vocals), Tom Fort (bass, guitar, vocals), Jesse Alexander (drums, vocals), and Mike Roth (bass, guitar, vocals), formed at Oberlin College, Ohio, although they’re mainly based in Chicago now, and have been around since 2003, although their first album, Jump The Fence, was released in 2008 – they’ve done another one since then - Everybody Wins!. No messing about for these guys, this is serious business – unless you count that apparently one of them uses the song Slow Down at the end of the day in a primary school as a soundtrack to the kids packing up.

Their song MySpace (Like You Like Me) is the one I keep getting told to listen to (by Hannah). It’s good and fun, very jumpy-abouty and happy, which probably makes it all the more unusual that I like it so much. It’s the kind of music you use in the background of a Persil advert, if that makes sense – the sort of ‘happy kids roll in the mud and climb trees’ feel to it. I like You Left Your Sweater better though (that kind of rhymes), it’s got even more of the active party-time-ness in it. But then there's also Oregon, I Know, which isn't anything like what I usually listen to because I don't like guitar solos just for the sake of them, but dayummmmm.

I could go on about all their songs, but I wouldn’t want to spoil the fun. What you should know is that it is exactly that – fun. Fun, happy stuff, one of the few bands that I like listening to that I could show to my younger siblings without really being considered a bad influence. The tags on their bandcamp say “americana pop punk rock fun horn section upbeat Chicago”, which sums it all up really and also counts as a sort of tl;dr for this whole post. If you like horns, if you like pop punk, if you like people from Chicago and you like bands that really know how to make very pretty music and are going to be performing at SXSW this summer (14^th March – Haddington’s, noon; 14^th March – Bourbon Girl/Orange Amps Stage, 3pm; 16^th March – Empire Auto Club & Control Room Patio, 3pm, all in Austin, Texas), then you should definitely listen to Cobalt and the Hired Guns.

Facebook / Twitter (kind of) / Website / Youtube

Look, A Band: Bring Home Ohio

They’re Bring Home Ohio. They’re Alex Beams (drums), Gabe Pietrafesa (guitar), Dylan Fader (guitar/vocals), Zak Houacine (bass) and Alex Magnan (vocals) – I really like trivia such as band member names, which is why I list them. They’re an unsigned band from Albany, New York (the largest of the Albanys, apparently), who describes themselves as a pop-punk band with influences including Fall Out Boy, Taking Back Sunday and Blink 182. They’re interested in grandpas. They’ve got friends at Glamour Kills (it’s a fashion brand that sponsors the likes of All Time Low, You Me At Six and Mayday Parade). They’ve got pretty cool merch (I love merch and merch is how bands live). That, to me, sets a pretty high standard.

To be fair, they do pretty well at meeting those standards. In my erm . . . expert opinion (one day I swear I’ll know what I’m talking about), it’s definitely pop punk, and I quite like it. The songs don’t instantly grab me or anything – I’m not squealing in my seat or anything. However, they’re definitely good songs, they definitely know how to play instruments, and I can see them growing on me pretty easily, seeing as how I plan on listening to them again quite a lot, especially The Way It Goes. They’ve done a reasonably good cover of Finders Keepers by You Me At Six as well, and I generally have a phobia of cover version.

So yeah, these guys are good and I would watch out for them, ‘cause they have lots of videos and seem to be pretty busy, and just . . . if you’re one of those people who likes to be into bands before everyone else, then give them a listen. I meaannn ittttt.

Facebook / Twitter

Look, A Band: Aspirations

Aspirations (Alex Ramos – vocals, Mark St. Pierre – vocals, Chaz Bentley – guitar, Dylan Bradberry – bass, Kyle Daniel – drums) are apparently a ‘melodic post-hardcore’ six-piece from Atlanta, Georgia. I have high hopes for this because, looking at my iTunes, despite the fact that I and, I think, a large amount of the general public aren’t entirely sure what post-hardcore is (“Post-hardcore is a genre of music that developed from hardcore punk, itself an offshoot of the broader punk rock movement” – Wikipedia), I have a lot of post-hardcore on my iPod.

There’s only one song on their facebook (and it’s the only one I can currently find elsewhere) – Restoration - but it’s a good song, I really like it. To me – and I know fuck all about the technical side of music – it at least sounds like they really know what they’re doing. Plus, there’s screaming, and I love screaming. I wish I could scream. The song reminds me of Of Mice And Men, We Came As Romans type stuff, and that’s generally not a bad thing, ‘cause OM&M are one of my favourite bands. I’ve already re-listened to this a few times while writing this post, and were I able to find any other songs, I would love to listen to them. I am all over this, I’ve got the new-band feeling. Excuse me while I abseil down into the fandom before the main crowd gets here.

Aaaaaaa this is awesome, I just wish I could find more songs, aside from the teaser for Remember When (that’s the most dramatic entrance of the word ‘ugh’ ever, I need someone to make a gif out of that).

Facebook / Twitter

Look, A Band: A Mistake Undone

A Mistake Undone is the first band on my long list I have compiled. I’m not sure what you actually get if you undo a mistake, but let’s assume for now that the answer to that is three people – P.D. Hewitt (vocals, guitar, piano), Bailey Luce (bass) and Brandon Nick (drums) – from Indiana, whose influences are listed as, amongst others, Panic! At The Disco, Rise Against, Tonight Alive, Mayday Parade and then also . . . Tonight Alive again. That’s a relatively wide range of influences, of which I greatly approve.

They’re an alright band, and they sound like they could be really good with some practice. Their songs are good, but they still sound very, very new and a bit unsure of themselves on the songs I can find. Their song Run Away seems to be the main one, and it’s ok, but the singing varies a bit between shy and something a little bit like Tom DeLonge. Don’t get me wrong, Tom DeLonge is good, it’s just a little bit unnerving when he momentarily possesses people.

Aaargh, I don’t like saying bad stuff, because they are a band that sounds like they could be really good, but I suppose I need to do constructive criticism (but what do I even know about music, I can’t even play an instrument). They just need to practice and get more confident and relaxed.

But over all, they are good, and their two songs that I managed to find are growing on me.

Facebook / Twitter / Website 

(I changed the name to Look, A Band because I felt childish and I'm not childish I'm really mature)