A couple of years back, I was introduced to a man by the name of Nick Smeaton, aka: Nick Cigar, who featured in a rather heavy band that also featured the odd offbeat. There was also another side to Nick’s work though, with some classical inspired music under his belt, it would be fair to say that Nick is a rather consumate pianist.
Local musicians making a break for the outside world isn’t new, with Manchester and London being some popular destinations. This story comes from Leeds though, The Escort Knights feature local born drummer Joe Montague alongside bandmates, Ewan Santer, Jonathan Doherty and Alex Blomley on guitar, keys and bass respectively.
I do worry about AMPjam sometimes, namely how far the name reaches, and for a lowly local fanzine, it’s quite a surprise when you get asked about CD reviews from a band hailing from the South Coast. Not that it’s a bad thing either, Somahigh had a sound that we didn’t mind checking out that little bit more and their EP proved a good starting point.
It was some time coming for this one, Scared Of The Ocean were hinting at an album for some time, even back when they were called Thesocalled. And so, the band release an album dubbed, pretty fittingly, “Thalassophobia” (if you don’t know it,just wiki it). Along with the band refining their old material and some of their relatively new tracks, the material was already waiting to be given the recording treatment.
It’s a shame that when young bands come up they usually come around with a bit of stigma, people seem a bit wary of bands who they’ve not seem in some other name that’s been around. However, maybe Footswitch are one band to dispel such thoughts, like a good few young bands they have as much punch as the experienced groups in the area, despite only having a three track Ep to their name.
Embrace The Tide have been a bit of a busy band as of late, taking their melodrama tinged metal workings up a notch, easing in some new material and getting to work on their debut album. It’s not done lightly either, the album, titled ”They Bring Ruin”, is in itself looking fairly hefty at thirteen tracks long and peddling it’s fair share of weight.
Whenever it comes to acoustic days, there are certain names that are more-or-less a dead cert for making an appearance. Isabelle are one such band, aside from running the chilled open mic nights at the Sno! Bar, every summer you can guarantee that they’ll be stringing out some summery tunes, some of them featuring on their latest album, “At Your Easel”.
It’s been a while since I seen the Tombstone Bullets boys in action, in fact it was probably having some food with them at Nandos after last year’s Livezone event. Back then the guys were intent on getting some recording on the way for an album, and about a year on the guys have their wares on display with their self titled album.
It seems that you get two kind of bands when it comes to material, some play the same tracks for about a year, while others are seem pretty much workaholics on the outside, guess where Mitchell Taylor (aka: Project Wolverine) sits with another album’s worth of material down for a collection of tracks dubbed “Lost Boy Blues” with more tales to tell upon certain scenes of life.
As learning curves go, it can be steeper for some than others, when we first bumped into The Maze at the Rock School Riot the band seemed to be stepping into a big idea that still had a bit of growing space. However, it seems that way of working has indeed paid off with the band now looking a whole lot more confident, comfortable and with their own demo to get things rolling.
