Posts By Sam Brookes

Tyler the Creator is one of the most loved and hated rap artists in the world right now. His darker lyric content, strange behavior in public and unique backing beats seem to divide as much as gather fans. The rap collective he belongs to OFGWKTA (Odd Future Golf Wang Kill The All) continue to help him divide that opinion with their music.

Before I start, Goblin is not your typical rap album. There’s no stereotypical guns, girls and diamonds in these lyrics. It’s about suicide, abandonment issues and dealing with internal rage.
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Viva la TGOAT. Unfortunately this band broke up last year just as they were on the edge of massive success and hardcore domination. The Ghost of a Thousand were a five piece hardcore band from Brighton. Their first album This Is Where the Fight Begins had massive potential but got buried under the hype for Your Demise’s Ignorance Never Dies and Gallows Orchestra of Wolves. Read More

As of the 24th of May I’m 20. 20! My teens are officially dead and as music is a big part of my life and has been for the past decade (someone kill me). I thought I’d mourn with a review of the first album I ever bought and is still to this day one of my guilty pleasures. I will forever think of my youth when I listen to this album and it instantly conjures memories of portable CD players and summer holidays from when I was 12.
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Continuing the trend of reviewing the current and my all time favourites, The Kids We Used To Be definitely comes under the category of all time favourite. A brilliant party hardcore album that I listen to as a summer anthem and a winter killer. I’ll never outgrow this album as it basically defines my character. Read More

If you could get in to a time machine and go back to 2006, then once you get there go to Luton Airport and head over to the HMV there, you would find a fifteen year old me standing on the precipice of making one of the most important decisions I would make in terms of my friends, lifestyle, tattoos and music taste. On one side System Of A Down’s Steal this Album, an album my friends were encouraging me to buy and would have represented me following their music taste, something I’d been doing for the past year or so.
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Every once in a while a music fan gets to have the great, rare pleasure of saying “I liked them before everyone found out about them”. I am predicting that within the next year or two I will be saying that here because Napoleon’s new four track EP is proof that they are the next big thing. Read More

Do you like your metal with a bit of brains behind it? Or even concepts within concepts? Then Mastodon is a band I’m sure you’re going to love.

Sludge metal quintet Mastodon have always been a clever band by typical metal standards. Rather than singing about any old subject, Mastodon like to mix it up a bit. Read More

The crowd feels hostile and mischievous tonight. As we arrive at the legendary Kasbah venue we’re met with glares from fourteen year old kids. Of Mice & Men were always going to pull in a weird crowd though and they’ve proved it within seconds of arriving. Rumours run amongst the excitable fan girls that the headliners have been spotted in a beer garden somewhere. Read More

Lets face it; there were high expectations for Pure Love and none were higher than mine. I feel a little let down and if I could swear out of pure resentment then I would, I really, really would. Ex-Gallows vocalist Frank Carter has totally lost the plot going from being the very pinnacle of hardcore to writing *shudders* stadium rock. Read More

Genre transcenders Rolo Tomassi released Old Mystics at the beginning of the year to coincide with the unfortunate departure of their bassist Joseph Thorpe and Lead guitarist Joe Nicholson. As they were two of the four components that make Rolo Tomassi so explosive and different to most bands, it’s a huge blow to the band and their fan base.
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