Tag: the killers

The Young Hearts @ The Lighthouse, Deal – 23/07/22

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It’s been a long two and a half years since The Young Hearts graced the stage with their nostalgic punk rock tones. In that time a lot has happened to the band including the release of their debut album The Modern State (you can read our review here) and more recently they announced the departure of Aaron and AJ their guitarist and drummers respectively. The Young Hearts have set about to put this right with an intimate show at the locally renowned The Lighthouse which sits nestled along the seafront of their hometown. Lined up with support from Killing Giants and Moron Butler, and a sell-out crowd to support them, did The Young Hearts deliver on their return?

Killing Giants

To get the home crowd warmed up was Killing Giants. They offered a relentless set in the modern British rock tradition to a surprisingly full crowd for an opening band at a local show. This could partly be down to the band’s quality.  They played a tight set with strong lead vocals and plenty of interesting dynamics to their set to keep tonight’s appreciative crowd intrigued. The band did use some triple harmonies and swapped lead vocals occasionally, this was probably the weaker part of their set. However, this was mostly due to the strength in Killing Giants lead vocalist. Switching away from him felt a little jarring as a lot of the drive of their sound is in his rugged and powerful tone, but letting him loose away from the mic did allow him to add some great stage presence for a band that were already exciting to watch.  Great opener – 4/5.

Moron Butler

Next up to support were Moron Butler who are probably a bit of an obscure choice on this line up. They were described as drone, post-punk and poetry and that’s pretty much it! This is the second time I’ve seen Moron Butler and like before it seemed to divide the crowd, however this time most people stuck at it and there was an element of interest in what they were offering. Personally, I like it. The whole thing is held up by singer Troy who, demands attention without explicitly asking for it, and holds the stage on his own. The rest of the band do feel like his backing band, lacking some presence but it’s the poetic spoken lyrics that pull you in to listen further. It reminds me of some of ‘At the Drive In’s’ earlier work. I think Moron Butler’s live presence relies a lot the element of surprise as their set was more enjoyable first-time round, but it was still great to see again. 3/5.

The Young Hearts

Now time for the main event. The Young Hearts have already achieved a dream of many by selling out a home town show and they did not disappoint this energetic crowd. It didn’t feel like a ‘local scene’ show.

The Young Hearts haven’t had a chance to promote their album, but tonight those tracks sounded big. Craig’s vocals sounded well-polished as he always does and the band look like they had been playing together for years, despite a 50% member change. The new line-up has slotted in place and bring some great presence on stage.

The band were clearly enjoying themselves and this filtered back into the crowd who only got more involved as the set went on. There was a nice flow to the set, which only took breaks to change tuning and didn’t allow for the crowd to lose their energy. The addition of a couple of covers to the set was a welcome treat and were played as if their own. We also got to sample a couple of new tracks as a taster of what’s to come, and it’s more of the same well craft tracks you would expect from The Young Hearts.

But it was the singles such as ‘London’ and ‘Old Familiar’ which stood out. Ever catchy and had everyone jumping around this cosy venue. As vocalist Craig put it, this crowd made them feel like rockstars and The Young Hearts duly delivered up a set worthy of it, even being called back for an encore and a chance to cover The Killers‘ ‘When You Were Young’. Vocalist Craig sounding every bit as good as Brandon Flowers. It’s a welcome return and you should get out to see them when they inevitably head out on the road. 5/5.

📷 All of the photos in this post are credited to James Borley 📸
Why not give him a follow on Instagram or check out his website.

 Setlist

Wild & Reckless (Extended Intro)
The Way Back
Smoke
Easy Life
The Modern State
Still Wander
Left Of The Dial (Replacements Cover)
Old Familiar*
London*
Don’t Tell A Soul
When You Were Young (The Killers Cover)

* These songs can be viewed in the YouTube playlist, below.

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Rob Manhire
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#Review: You Me At Six – VI

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You Me At Six are an English rock band from Surrey. Since forming in 2004, the band have enjoyed various successes with all of their albums (except their first) reaching the Top 5 of the UK Album Charts and their fourth album, Cavalier Youth, reached Number 1! Now, 2018 sees the band return with their aptly-named sixth studio album, VI. Here’s what we have to say about it…

You Me At Six - VI.jpg

One thing is for certain, this band are superb at adapting their sound and have continued to evolve throughout their already pretty lengthy career. Their previous album, Night People, received rather mixed reviews suggesting it was a rather disjointed effort – although credit to them for trying something new! However, this is all about to change with VI!

The album bursts into life with the very gritty and rather explosive ‘Fast Forward’, which sees Franceschi screaming, “Pour some gasoline on,” with his trademark gravelly voice. The track has highs and lows in all the right places – prominent, grungy synths make this a strong album opener…think U2 but heavier!

Next to follow is the hugely atmospheric, stadium-filler, ‘Straight To My Head’ with 80s-style synths, strong bass lines and an incredibly catchy, chant-able chorus – possibly the best track on the record.

There is a distinctly indie meets disco sound across the album too. Lead single ‘3AM’ epitomises the vibe of the record; like something by The Killers, The Maccabees or even Bastille maybe, with a running rhythm to the vocals, whilst ‘Back Again’ is possibly the most pop-like track on the album, seeing Franceschi using his falsetto – a great, feel-good track.

They’ve once again diversified their sound, kept it fresh and refused to stick to a sound that’s previously brought them success.

Possibly the weakest songs have to be ‘I O U’ – a bass-led affair that feels disjointed in places; it’s quite experimental, in that it changes pace and sound throughout. Also, ‘Predictable’ is quite similar to something by Arctic Monkeys; it’s a little droning and not particularly memorable. Whilst ‘Pray For Me’ is a wonderfully euphoric song but throughout feels like it’s going to a place that it never actually goes.

‘Danger’ instantly grabs your attention with a beat that starts almost identically to Toni Basil‘s ‘Mickey’, but quickly demonstrates it’s much more edgy than that. It’s an upbeat track with some incredible, diverse vocals – a really strong track!

Probably the most controversial song on the album, is closing track, ‘Losing You’ – it builds beautifully with some captivating vocal effects and all-consuming reverb on the synths and guitars. It is bound to be a real mixed-bag with the fans.

It has to be said that You Me At Six have done a superb job with this record – they’ve once again diversified their sound, kept it fresh and refused to stick to a sound that’s previously brought them success. They’re a band that press forward and continue to grow and VI clearly shows that the band have made an album they wanted to make – for that, they should be very proud.

Rating
3.5

‘VI’ is out now and can be downloaded from iTunes – https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/vi/1380831965

VI on Spotify

3AM (Official Video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrELmjpktYE

We hope you’ve enjoyed our review! What do you think of this band’s…? Are you as much of a fan as us? What would you rate it out of 5? Please leave your thoughts in a comment or via our social media.

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#Review: Isaac Gracie – Isaac Gracie (Self-Titled)

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Isaac Gracie is an incredibly talented singer-songwriter, hailing from London. From humble beginnings, his 2016 demo, ‘Last Words’ caused a big stir online, leading to the head of Universal Music flying over from LA just to see him perform, resulting in his signing to Virgin EMI. Now, in 2018, the songsmith is releasing his debut, self-titled album. Here’s what we have to say about it…

Isaac Gracie.jpg

Every so often an album comes along that is both exciting, inspirational and sonically diverse; groundbreaking even…this is definitely one of those albums! (The last album I felt like this about was Will Joseph Cook‘s Sweet Dreamer.)

Whilst growing up, Gracie’s father left the family home and since signing to Virgin EMI, his longterm relationship sadly ended, but out of the ashes of these life-influencing events came some fantastic songwriting material, resulting in this incredibly powerful debut. As such, throughout the album, there are strong themes of abandonment, guilt and heartbreak; this honest approach and willing exposure of his emotional vulnerabilities is nothing new to songwriting but the way it marries up with the instrumentation is simply marvellous.

Opening track, ‘Terrified’ (think Elbow meets Harry Styles‘ ‘Two Ghosts’) chronicles Gracie’s own fears and insecurities surrounding the hype about him, singing, “I’m terrified that maybe, I wasn’t cut out for this.” He really needn’t worry though; he certainly is cut out for this!

‘Last Words’ is a huge track for him; it’s the song that kick-started the buzz about him and whilst it’s very different from the demo, he admitted that he spent quite some time playing around with different versions before settling on the one that’s now on the record. He’s managed to strike a great balance between the original demo, maintaining some of it’s raw essence but also brought more depth to it with the addition of strings. Imagine a track by The Beatles that’s been countryfied and you get this!

The brilliant blend of highs and lows, and fusion of indie, rock, country and latin flavours has genuinely created one of the most genre-bending albums heard in a long time!

‘The Death Of You & I’ is a personal favourite – it’s got an almost latin beat behind it before it unleashes a hidden ferocity. The calm verses that erupt into the heavy, chaotic choruses make this an intense and fun song which you can’t help but want to thrash around to, wildly. There’s even an almost salsa-esque breakdown before the final chorus, making this one of the most intriguing songs I’ve heard in years.

Other stand-out tracks include; ‘Running On Empty’, which is relatively mainstream and quite indie (like something you might expect to hear from The Killers or Maccabees), ‘Telescope’ with its beautiful overlapping vocals at the end, ‘That Was Then’, which has stunning, dynamic vocals, ranging from deep to falsetto, topped off with a powerful and melodic chorus and ‘When You Go’, which is a track you would expect to hear from the likes of The Barr Brothers or Vance Joy and be accompanied by a music video shot with an old, handheld, film-reel camera; it’s strongly folk flavoured.

Gracie has been quoted as saying that he set out to create the best record of all time and whilst there are bound to be people who have differing opinions, he certainly has created a masterpiece! The brilliant blend of highs and lows, and fusion of indie, rock, country and latin flavours has genuinely created one of the most genre-bending albums heard in a long time…yet somehow it still works as a comprehensive body of work that is uniquely identifiable as him. This is an album I am certain will make a big impact this year and will definitely carve out an exciting future for his music career. Utter brilliance!

Rating
4-5

‘Isaac Gracie’ is out now and can be downloaded from iTunes – https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/isaac-gracie/1345686455

Isaac Gracie on Spotify

Terrified (Official Video)

Silhouettes Of You (Official Video)

Last Words (Official Video)

We hope you’ve enjoyed our review! What do you think of Isaac Gracie’s self-titled debut album? Are you as much of a huge fan as us? What would you rate it? Please leave your thoughts in a comment or chat to us about it via our socials.

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#FeelGoodFriday: The Notionaries – ‘Excited Eyes’

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The Notionaries are a 4-piece band from Denver, America, who formed in 2014.

The band have crafted their own electronic indie sound, combining percussion with electric guitars and synthesisers to create a very current and immersive persona, similar to the likes of The Killers and Walk The Moon.

This particular song is very upbeat and whilst the video is very independently shot, it’s captivating.

How do you feel about this band? Do you have any #FeelGoodFriday suggestions for us? Comment below.

Matt – Muzik Speaks
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‘Excited Eyes’ can be downloaded from iTunes right now – https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/excited-eyes-single/id964021971