Read Poets Society

   Music has been a big part of my life for a long time, and there are particular album that were important for me at particular times during my time at school. Hopefully you find this an interesting look at some of the records that influenced my musical tastes today, and I wonder if you have had albums that were or are particularly important during school. Let me know in the comments!    1) The Black Parade - My Chemical Romance     The Black Parade was actually the last MCR album I heard; up until that stage I had eaten up I Brough You My Bullets..., Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge and even Danger Days to the point of obsession. The Black Parade was one of the big ones for me in high school, though, because it reignited my passion for playing music, in particular playing the guitar. I also think the grander narrative and theatrics of The Black Parade took me by surprise and is one of the reasons I still feel the same about this album now as I did at ag...

   Pop punk is a term that unfortunately tends to turn me right off these days; not because I dislike the genre but simply because the majority of pop punk records that have been made in the last 5-10 years have all more or less sounded the same to me. This obviously isn't a hard and fast rule - I still maintain that it is possible to make a pop punk record that sounds exciting and fresh, and have been proven right on a number of occasions so far - but for the most part I struggle to get into most albums in this genre beyond the lead singles. Without wanting to turn this review into an essay about what is wrong with pop punk music (which could well still happen), a combination of flat drum mixes, whiny and over-produced vocal performances with little melodic interest, the exact same guitar tone and the same predictable song structures and riffs make for a generally stale genre that I rarely have much interest in. Which is a shame, because I know good things can be done in the...

   Back in 2000 not many people would have said they expected what was widely seen as a novelty act to still be around in 17 years. But here we are in 2017 with a new collection of songs from Gorillaz, in the form of Humanz. This is very much an album from 2017, too, with Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett's virtual band pushing down fresh electronic avenues and addressing important issues from mental health to military intervention. By far the most impressive and cohesive Gorillaz album, Humanz is often exciting, other times haunting, and occasionally darker than anything we've heard from them before. It is a long slog to get through in one sitting, being almost 70 minutes, but taken in smaller doses Humanz is a great collection of pop songs set on dismantling pop sensibilities.    Favourite Tracks: Ascension , Saturnz Barz and Submission     Least Favourite Tracks: Andromeda     Rating: B     Follow me on Spotify: Jonty Cornford

In an effort to catch up on a bunch of albums that people have asked me about, here are some brief thoughts on releases from the last month or so.    1) Have Mercy: "Make The Best Of It"    Released: April 21 on Hopeless Records    I have really loved this band for a while now, and this new album simply reminds me why that is the case. They get labeled as pop-punk a lot, but it's the crossover between pop-punk and emo they have going that I find most appealing about Have Mercy's sound. I'm also a big fan of singer Brian Swindle's voice; he brings a grit and warmth that a lot of bands in the scene lack in their vocal performances without sounding contrived. Swindle lays his bones bare on Make The Best Of It and I was 100% along for the ride.    2) The Smith Street Band: "More Scared Of You Than You Are Of Me"    Released: April 7 on Pool House Records    Smith Street have given us another solid album with offering numb...

   Death is obviously a subject that lots of musicians have attempted to tackle, with wildly varying results. My Chemical Romance's punk-opera classic The Black Parade uses it as the central piece of an epic concept record. Sun Kil Moon's album Benji loiters around in a depressive state of rumination about the immediacy of death. And take your pick of almost any black/death/doom metal album. But rarely does an album explore death in a way that is genuinely confronting and uncomfortable to listen to; A Crow Looked At Me - the ninth Mount Eerie record and thirteenth including Phil Elverum's previous work as The Microphones - does just that, and I found it really difficult to listen to.     A Crow Looked At Me documents Elverum's wife Geneviève's  death at the hands of pancreatic cancer - a disease that kills 80% of patients within a year - leaving behind him and his eighteen month old daughter. Musically it fits snugly into a consistently above average discogra...

   On Friday Northlane released their fourth studio album Mesmer without any warning, and it's pretty awesome. Fans that were keeping up had been getting hints for a while, with cryptic announcements and a seriously cool chatbot, but Mesmer was a complete surprise for everyone, and one that has brought with it a more cohesive and complete sound for the band.    2015's  Node was a great way to open up the second chapter in the band's trajectory and featured a fantastic performance from new singer Marcus Bridge, but definitely felt like a transition album for a band that had forged such a signature sound and was in the middle of great change. Mesmer immediately feels a lot more comfortable than Node  for a bunch of reasons, which is to be expected now the band has been touring with Bridge almost non-stop for more than two years. While the production on Node didn't quite fit the sound they were going for and seemed a little flat across the board, David Bend...

   Western Sydney hip hop duo Horrorshow's fourth full length Bardo State is bursting with the kind of confidence that only comes from nine years of writing and performing with your best friend. The first two Horrorshow records felt like diary entries from rapper Solo with the musical landscapes painted by producer Adit; they were quietly content to go about their own business without worrying too much about anything else. 2013's King Amongst Many took a turn towards a slightly more pop orientated sound, like the duo were moving out of the western suburbs and into the bigger surrounding world, and Bardo State expands even further outwards.    That is the most notable thing about Bardo State ; bar a couple of exceptions ("Cherry Blossom" being the biggest exception) there is little to none of the rough around the edges charm and simplicity of the early Horrorshow records. This is likely going to turn off some fans of the older sound, but you have to remember - thos...