• Foals are edging ever nearer to the release date of their third studio album "Holy Fire" with the number penned in for February 12, one that will have Foals fans on the edge of their seats waiting for. Luckily, they keep spoiling us with singles and here's My Number, the second to be released from the album.

    It's incredibly poppy, and very Foals, but is much softer and subtler in it's approach. It still has elements of that fast rhythmic guitar beat that set them aside from everyone else a handful of years ago, but their sound has matured and redefined itself with the shape of modern indie.

    I immediately warmed to it and wanted to dance along, something Foals have always managed to capture perfectly. That spirit pop indie dance vibe that we all long for on a Summers night. 

    I can already hear the echoes of what will be Holy Fire around many a UK field, and it may well be one of the more notable releases of 2013...here's hoping Foals don't disappoint!

    Also, Yannis just seems to get hotter with age... my my.



  • Ahh, I love it when the Internet unearths some gems about someone's past! Enter Este and Danielle from band currently taking the world by storm; Haim. Here's what they did before Haim, and that was singing about hair in tween pop band Valli Girls, for Trollz dolls. 

    Don't know about you, but i'm kinda digging it. Granted, it's not quite BBC Sound of 2013, but the lyrics really resonated with me. "It's a hair thing, it's a pink thing, music and fashion make us happy."

    YOU GO VALLI GIRLS! Anyone else suddenly fancy a game of Dreamphone?
  •  

    Yesterday something rather exciting happened, and that was that not only was it David Bowie's 66th birthday, he turned around and surprised us all by launching a brand new single complete with video as well as whisperings of a new album. Erm, what? Incredible.

    The song entitled "Where Are We Now?" is the first hint at his new album due out in March, called "The Next Day. It's a soft, melancholy affair, referencing heavily to Bowie's Berlin years. The album is said to have 14 tracks on and follows up a decade after the release of his last album "Reality" from 2003.

    Since then Bowie has kept a very low profile, stopping his silence today to release the following statement on his official website:
    "In recent years radio silence has been broken only by endless speculation, rumour and wishful thinking ....a new record...who would have ever thought it, who'd have ever dreamed it! After all David is the kind of artist who writes and performs what he wants when he wants...when he has something to say as opposed to something to sell. Today he definitely has something to say."

    As of 8th January, Bowie's single hit number one almost immediately in the iTunes chart.



  • As the cold wind blew down South London's streets, a tentative crowd of mid twenty-somethings eagerly awaited the final curtain call of one of Canada's finest post-hardcore exports, Alexisonfire. Not quite knowing what to expect, or how to feel, I went in with a fairly open mind. Hoping to hear some of the old classics as well as some of the later tracks, all I really wanted was a send off perfectly embodying the years of blinding shows they gave the UK during the 00s. A tough one for me personally, as AOF are without a doubt my ultimate faves, so it was a mixed affair. 

    They jumped into life surprising us all by opening with Crisis, the title track from their 2005 album. Immediately I was knocked by the sheer energy coming from these men. It was almost as if they had never played a show before. Expecting a few slips and mistakes - it was after all, incredibly early on in the tour - they were almost faultless, with Dallas's haunting vocals pitch perfect and echoing through Brixton as most of the crowd just stood in awe at what was happening. 

    They surprised us even further by bashing out some even older tracks such as Waterwings and .44 Caliber Love Letter further on in the set. It looked like they really had taken into consideration what the fans would want to hear combined with what would make the ultimate Alexisonfire setlist. They hardly stopped in between songs, just relentlessly thrashing out the songs back to back. When they did stop to talk it wasn't cliched or cringe worthy, just pure and simple thanks - staying so true to everything Alexis always did so well, proving they were never about image or fakery, but just creating incredible music.

    The fact that I hadn't purposely listened to them for several months up to the show meant that I was often thrown with a curve ball of emotions hitting me all at once, and the sheer power of the chorus in Boiled Frogs got me in a choke-hold, and resonated with what seemed to be a fitting theme for the night "my youth is slipping away."

    The ultimate surprise of the night - and one that made me squeal like a kid on Christmas Day - was the outing of the very title of this here blog, Charlie Sheen vs Henry Rollins. Not many of the crowd knew this one, and I heard it wasn't played the night after, but for the Switcheroo Series fans among us, it really got our blood pumping. I screamed every single lyric like I meant it - and I don't often do that at shows anymore. A real throw back to my youth.

    They ended the set with slightly predictable Happiness By The Kilowatt, but by that point no one was complaining at all, and seemed to join in arms at the sight of losing this amazing band, and enjoying their last five minutes on stage before they linked arms and took a final bow.

    Alexisonfire stayed true to themselves throughout the whole show, didn't disappoint at all, and gave themselves the best sending off any band on a reunion tour could hope to achieve. The crowd almost left in silence, stunned by what we had all witnessed. Hats off to you Alexis, you really showed Brixton that night, one i'll talk about forever.

    FULL SETLIST

    Crisis
    Get Fighted
    Waterwings
    Old Crows
    Control
    You Burn First
    We Are The Sound
    .44 Caliber Love Letter
    This Could Be Anywhere In The World
    Midnight Regulations
    Pulmonary Archery
    No Transitory
    Dogs Blood
    Keep It On Wax
    Accept Crime
    Boiled Frogs
    Drunks, Lovers, Sinners and Saints
    Charlie Sheen vs Henry Rollins
    The Northern
    Accidents
    Rough Hands
    Young Cardinals
    Happiness By The Kilowatt





  • So after much careful deliberation, here's the definitive playlist of the top ten singles of 2012 - in our opinion - and your new favourite Spotify playlist.

    2012 saw new releases from Gallows and Die Antwoord, both with incredibly different styles but powerful each in their own. The self titled album from Gallows has punched to the forefront why Gallows still hold their own unique sound in a sea of mediocre UK punk/hardcore, and Die Antwoord's release TEN$ION once again proves why zef style is taking over the hip hop scene.

    A surprise hit for us came in the shape of the beautiful Mumford-esque pop folk sounds of Of Monsters and Men, their whole album here being a belter but this song in particular standing out for it's simply beautiful melodies.

    2012 saw the launch of a new band from ex King Blues guitarist Jamie Jazz, Bleach Blood. Not knowing what to expect, we were blown away by the first track we heard from their EP The Young Heartbreakers Club, I Was Born In A Rave. A disco punk anthem for the modern generation.

    Pop saw some blinders of tunes, notably from Gotye featuring Kimbra with Somebody That I Used To Know, proving that once again simple yet relatable lyrics are enough to set the world's heart on fire. Rihanna had a lot of hits, but our personal favourite comes from Diamonds, a subtler style of pop from the queen of raunchy lyrics, something a little softer on the ears with a good beat.

    Of course, there were some incredible indie albums, the newest release from Crystal Castles got us all jumping in fields over the summer and the soft sounds of The XX set us all softly to sleep after the party.

    Oh and Azealia Banks stormed the year with 212, looking set to give Rihanna and M.I.A a run for their money in 2013.

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