Flying On Clipped Wings

In order to properly convey my love of hard-hitting, abrasive, underground music, I’d need a far larger word count and the ability to use hyperlinks in this piece. Instead, I chose a particular album that was released last year, Svalbard’s It’s Hard To Have Hope . It stands up, not only as the band’s finest moment to date, a fact recognised by many of the scene’s major media outlets, but as a shining example of what hardcore can do and be at its very best. For a genre that’s often pigeonholed as being formulaic and one-dimensional, hardcore has managed to weave a number of different elements and approaches into its tapestry. Svalbard are no slouches in this department. Their approach is a really interesting mix of the beautiful melodies and rich soundscapes of the recent wave of post-rock leaning black metal bands, but underpinned by a very straightforward pummelling rhythm section, keeping things grounded and the attack very in-your-face. There’s sweeping beauty and a thunder...

Well, 2018. It was a year. Honestly whether it was a good or bad one depends what lens you're looking at it through but it was definitely a year that'll be etched into the history books. Fortunately it did produce quite a bit of good music, which I'll document here in the form of my favourite tracks released. Calvin Harris & Dua Lipa: One Kiss Calvin Harris makes his return to more traditional dance music with this silky smooth cut. Dua Lipa continues to exude the effortless cool that's become her trademark of sorts, the instrumental has some lovely 90's house vibes I'm a sucker for, the true big song of the summer. Vein: Virus//:Vibrance Vein are one of the hottest bands in hardcore at the minute, and this song is more than sufficient justification for that. They've taken the white-hot aggression of their early EPs, and teased it out more into an almost sickeningly forceful groove, losing none of the power but far more refined. It's as catchy a...

​ In the second edition of Song Of The Day, we're sticking in the punk realm, but with a song I feel more of ye might actually give a listen as it's not screamy af, it's  RVIVR's Wrong Way/One Way . It's a brilliant rough edged pop punk jam, but also one of the songs that validates just why this genre, punk is one of the most important artistic things our species has been able to create. Punk was created by misfits, the drug addled, the ethnic minorities, the working class, the alienated, the ones aware of how shit everything was and wanting to change that. Yet despite all of this history, it's still been a really hostile and reactionary place for a lot of people, especially if you're queer or gender non conforming, like one of this band's vocalists, Mattie, formerly of Latterman, another sick rough edged melodic punk band. They've put themselves on the line, not only by writing songs about these issues and talking about them, but by pressing ...