This week The Mic Recommends... brings you new tracks from Pale Waves, Enter Shikari, and Kasabian. Read what our writers make of Friday's new releases.
All I Know – Fin Cliff
Fin Cliff’s second single, All I Know, provides indie guitar-driven goodness packed with energy. Co-produced with Connor Schofield of JAWS, this song emits an irresistible pull to get you moving. I don’t doubt for a second that it’ll go down well with audiences in a live setting, with memorable riffs and an undeniable drive felt throughout. There’s an emotional resonance to be felt in the track reminiscent of indie rock titans like Sam Fender, and a sense of punchiness and power that’s incredibly exciting and promising, that could one day be filling out venues bigger than the ones he’s paying right now. All I Know has a great sense of progression, with a bridge that bites and a gorgeously twinkly ending that really shows his capability to use musical light and shade. It’s clear that this is only the beginning for this Leicester-born soon-to-be legend; he’s definitely one to watch. Isobel Morris
Younger - Kim Ven
Emigrating from her native home of Australia at perhaps the worst time (Spring 2020 - ring any bells?), London-based Kim Ven found that this period of collective upheaval prompted a fair amount of reflection and introspection. It’s a truth universally acknowledged that the older you get the faster time passes, and Ven’s latest single Younger perfectly epitomises the rose-tinted nostalgia we feel when recalling days gone by (even if they didn’t feel quite so peachy at the time). Comparisons with Lana Del Rey’s brand of sultry Americana are apt, yet a jagged drum line and slacker rock-influenced guitars act as foils to Ven’s syrupy vocals and the otherwise dreamy soundscape. Lyrically, she hones in on the modern tendency to live in our own heads a little too much; the hook “stop thinking that they’re talking about you / it’s not true” is the linguistic equivalent of an eye roll and wry smile. Its release is almost perfectly timed to coincide with the late summer headiness it evokes. Younger is a testament to Ven’s skill as a writer, capturing emotions which are both personal yet broadly relatable. Daisy Carter
Clean – Pale Waves
With many people deeming Pale Waves’ third album Unwanted the Manchester-born band’s best work to date before it was even officially released, Clean is one of the tracks from the album that proves this statement entirely true. The track harks back to sounds of their debut album My Mind Makes Noises, a style that they entirely abandoned on their sophomore Who Am I? in favour of a more guitar-led approach. The more pop-punky Avril Lavigne-inspired sounds are still present but they are merged with the electronic 80s-infused influences that Pale Waves burst onto the scene with in 2018. Whilst Who Am I? leant a little bit too much into their influences, Clean sounds like nothing but a Pale Waves track – it sounds like no one except themselves. It’s a pleasure to see them returning to their roots, and Clean is the perfect balance of old and new, blending all their eclectic influences to produce one of their best and most definitively ‘Pale Waves’ sounding songs to date. If you’re a fan, listen to the rest of Unwanted too, because it is an absolute treat. Gemma Cockrell
The Void Stares Back - Enter Shikari feat. WARGASM (UK)
Shikari and WARGASM have united temporarily to release a single together, and whilst it had the potential to do great things, it feels like it suffers a little from a case of split personality. The song at varying points feels like a rave track, a nu-metal song, a modern pop track and also something off of a Prodigy album, without ever really feeling like they all connect and flow properly. Whilst I do still enjoy the song, it does fall a bit flat, like there was something else to come that never quite managed to make it in time. I will reserve judgement a little as it might be one of those tracks that goes extremely hard when it’s played live, but the more I listen to it right now the more I feel like it’s a little disjointed and needed a bit more push in a certain direction, instead of trying to accommodate for all the varying styles both bands have used at some time or another. Jake Longhurst
Charlie Bronson – Black Honey
Black Honey are a band who have made many festival appearances in Nottingham in the past year, performing at both Dot to Dot 2021 and Meadowlands this year. I was lucky enough to see them at both, so I was excited at the prospect of new music for them, their first release since 2021’s Written & Directed. When I saw that the track was named after Britain’s most notorious prisoner, I didn’t know what to expect. “Charlie Bronson is my rage,” the band’s singer and guitarist Izzy B. Phillips explained, “There’s a personality in my head that feels like Britain’s most notorious prisoner”. You will instantly hear this before she has even opened her mouth to sing, with an introduction that sounds like music you’d play as you walk into the boxing ring – a thought I had before I even saw the music video and realised that this is the exact scenario that is depicted there. Lyrically, Black Honey continue to make an important statement, with lines exploring Phillips’ experiences with the weight of societal expectations: “Gaslighting myself again / Lay me down with Marilyn / Rest in peace and rise again.” The band celebrated the release of the new single with an intimate gig at London’s Omeara, before they take to the main stage at Reading & Leeds for the first time at the end of the month. Gemma Cockrell
1984 - Slaughter To Prevail
One of the biggest bands in the new wave of deathcore, Slaughter To Prevail are courting controversy in their home country of Russia by releasing a song calling their government to stop the war. They have all fled the country, however even if they’d stayed Putin might’ve let them get away with it after listening to the song just because of how much it slams. The song is a true headbanger with a powerful message, and Alex Terrible’s vocals convey that message with just a hint of warning too, making it all the better to listen to. The song feels like a slight evolution of the sound of the band, possibly hinting at a change towards some slightly less intense deathcore in future, maybe even with a move towards the heaviest end of metalcore rather than straight up deathcore, however that is something that we will have to wait for to find out. Jake Longhurst
The Alchemists Euphoria – Kasabian
Kasabian’s latest release The Alchemists Euphoria follows the high precedent set by prior albums such as For Crying out Loud (2017) and 48:13 (2014). Both rocked the world on indie rock music, and songs on both albums became well-known bangers any indie rock fan would have in their playlist. Kasabian’s sacking of the previous frontman Tom Meighan in 2020 gave the band an opportunity to explore a new avenue and re-define who they were as a band through Serge Pizzorno. It was clear that this album was experimental in nature and a medium for the band to explore new sounds following this shift in the band. The release of the album had been pushed back due to production issues, but this did not stop the band from releasing ALYGATOR, SCRIPTVRE and CHEMICALS. CHEMICALS and ALYGATOR are songs that reminded me of classic Kasabian electro-rock sound that any Kasabian fan could welcome. I wondered if they had been released to set the tone and make fans feel as if there was going to be a continuation of what we could come to expect for the band. The rest of the album seems to have a different vibe from the aforementioned. Songs such as ROCKET FUEL did not really seem compatible with the Kasabian I had grown to love. STRICTLY OLD SKOOL has an electro-indie sound to it that seemed reminiscent of Kasabian’s sound. Letting go which features at the end of the album seems very poignant to the journey the band have been on. It seemed like a metaphor that acknowledges the band are letting go of the controversy that had surrounded the band. However, does this mean that the band let go of their classic indie-rock sound? Roisin Hickey
End (The Other Side) - Fit For A King
Fit For A King have come back swinging with a song that takes as much from deathcore as it does their traditional heavy/melodic metalcore style. Supposedly, their new album will also feature plenty more of the deathcore influence we find here, which I’m excited about. The song was written after someone very close to the vocalist was in a serious accident and nearly died and is about him asking them to stay because he doesn’t know how he will cope without them. The song is more than just a beautifully powerful song though, as the actual track is brilliant. The breakdown in the last 40 seconds is a highlight for me, but the first thirty seconds are absolutely brilliant, and frankly, the rest of the song is awesome too. I must say that the chorus feels a little too melodic to perfectly join with the rest of the song, but I do still really enjoy it and cannot wait to hear the new album. Jake Longhurst
Alpha Omega – Trash Boat feat. Kamiyada+ feat. Strange Bones
The release of Don’t You Feel Amazing? By Trash Boat in 2021 was a big deal for me. I had their singles Silence Is Golden and He’s So Good on repeat prior to the album drop, and then, you guessed it, had their album on repeat pretty much until now. Strange Bones is also one of my favourite artists, and actually the first artist I saw post-covid, and therefore has quite a bit of sentiment tucked behind their very chaotic, punky, and unforgiving outfit for me. Since seeing Strange Bones in August 2021, they’ve released a ridiculous-in-all-the-right-ways album, and also remixed a bunch of tracks together on Instagram, grabbing the attention of many rock stars, if you will, such as Oli Sykes from Bring Me The Horizon. But how well does this track work then? Well, it has Strange Bones all over it, inside it, around it, and under it. It’s lost the sound of Trash Boat, which was crafted very differently from their earlier work, and relied a lot on a new means of production. So, taking away the production of Trash Boat, which was one of the most exciting turns of the band, we’re left with just a lot of Strange Bones. And a lot of Strange Bones is a brilliant thing for me, but I’m not sure many loyal pop-punk Trash Boat fans will agree. Roxann Yus
Officer Down - Venom Prison
Venom Prison have returned with their first release since the excellent album Erebos in February with a cover of Officer Down by Stampin’ Ground. This is a very popular song of theirs to play live, and it holds up remarkably well on record too, with the band’s standard sound coming through excellently whilst still retaining the atmosphere of the original track. The death metal trappings work really nicely on the song, and Venom Prison’s amazing Larissa Stupar is on phenomenal vocal form as always, growling up a storm for the Welsh quartet. Whilst I strongly doubt this is the first sign of a new release or new album cycle just because of the proximity to the previous album, it’s a great track to tide us over until the band are ready to give us more new music, and in the meantime, we can still bump this and all their previous music with plenty of excitement for what’s coming next. Jake Longhurst
Edited by: Roxann Yus
Featured image courtesy of Black Honey via Facebook.
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