September Round-Up: The Ever-Changing Format

We meet again, end of the month, we meet again. This month has gone super mega really fast which is very unsettling and this has led me to start this post on the penultimate day of September. Classic Jat. I have also been dreading writing this for the past couple of days SO after five months or so of the new monthly round up format, I thought I'd switch it up again because really, who cares?

Let's see how this one pans out.

Exciting thing - I reached post number 1500 on the daily site this month, which is actually ridiculous.

MONTHLY PLAYLISTS: YouTube / Spotify / Deezer

What follows is a series of tweets and things I tweeted about over the past month which I either really enjoyed or really didn't enjoy. There are some other things here too - but I always find my Twitter feed is a nice thing to work off. I'm @WIIHAMB in case you missed that at the top of the page or you don't make it to the bottom.


I went to see Alessia Cara play her first show in London at the start of the month and it was super duper really totally cool and all I want is to hang out with her and have a great time. I can't wait until post-album when Alessia Cara has a full actually proper live band and is playing a venues five times bigger than Barfly. Things will be better then.


Chinah came to London twice this month, and the first time I chose not to go and see them. WHICH WAS DUMB. Luckily they came back last week and I went to see them and it was great and they were great and I really hope I get to see them loads more soon and also that they release some sort of EP or album-esque thing soon too.


September Song to Pretend You're in a Music Video To goes to this absolute banger. No seriously, every time this comes on I strut down the street like I own the place, fake screaming the chorus at the top of my lungs. Love it love it love it.


I became absolutely entirely really obsessed with London four-piece Fours' debut EP 'Everything I Never Said'. It's perfect. It's so so so great and I can not wait to go to a live show and lose my shit.


This is the first of two videos that I've completely fallen in love with this month. 'Good Girl' is a pretty new direction for English duo Aquilo, and I wasn't sold at first at all, but this song is unbelievably good. The video is super cool as well, kind of like a coming of age... but really like a coming of sound kind of thing. Look, I don't know, it's all just great.


The second is this little masterpiece. I've loved Erik Hassle for so many years now and his excellence shows absolutely zero signs of slowing down. New single 'Natural Born Lovers' needs to be framed in some kind of pop music hall of fame PLEASE.


I actually posted 'Can't Have' at the end of last month but it had taken me a little while to grow an unbelievably unhealthy obsession with it. Not only does this song leave me in a fairly emotional state anyway, the fact that Steven A Clark's album 'The Lonely Roller' isn't released in Europe until mid-November is even more of a blow, especially seeing as it's already available across North America. BUT Clark is playing a London Show the day before my birthday which is cool. Although it would be cooler if it wasn't a Monday.

Here are some releases that I thought were really suitably average this month:

So I was super disappointed with all of these. 'That's The Spirit' was just an average rock album at best, and we all know that people were only losing their shit because it was such a drastic change in sound for Bring Me The Horizon. Upon a second listen CRJ's 'Emotion' wasn't as average as I first thought, but seeing so many people hype it up prior to it's eventual UK release, I was expecting it to be monumental. 'Caracal', another fairly big disappointment. In hindsight Disclosure's debut wasn't that great overall, was it? But on paper, the features on 'Caracal' look incredible... the songs just don't match up to that. Finally, Fetty... Fetty, Fetty, Fetty. The deluxe version of Fetty Wap's self-titled debut is 20 tracks long, which I initially thought was EXCELLENT news. Eight tracks into the 20 and I wanted it all to end. There are points that are genuinely great, but unfortunately, the majority of the hour and quarter long record just sounds like one long song.

Here are a load of releases that I actually thought were great this month:



None of these are particularly surprising choices, I don't think, apart from Gabrielle Aplin. I've never been a fan before, just not my kinda thing, but I really thoroughly enjoyed this album. The others pictured were obviously also good, I wouldn't have included them if they weren't.

“Hey Natalie, Just wondering if you’ve had a chance to listen to-“ No. No I haven’t.

— WhatIfIHadAMusicBlog (@WIIHAMB) September 21, 2015

Daily feels.

.@OhWonderMusic vibes 💙💜💙 pic.twitter.com/17zmr1hZsu

— WhatIfIHadAMusicBlog (@WIIHAMB) September 16, 2015

I went to Oh Wonder's first ever show ever and it was really nice and it looked a bit like this.

The above is a thing that is happening which is cool. APART FROM THE FACT THAT OVER THREE DAYS ALL OF THESE THINGS ARE HAPPENING AT EXACTLY THE SAME TIME WHICH IS ESSENTIALLY REALLY FUCKING AWFUL. Like, why would you curate line-ups like this and then be like "meh fuck it, we'll have them all on the same three days"? WHY? This is really cool though, anyone mildly interested in music should spend at least two days in east London for this.

Thought about rating songs on a scale of YAS!-YASSSSS! but it’s all got a little confusing even for me.

— WhatIfIHadAMusicBlog (@WIIHAMB) September 4, 2015

This was almost genuinely a thing... for about five minutes.

A Chat with The Gospel Youth (@TheGospelYouth) at Hevy Fest (@HevyFest) "We still have a massive point to prove.” http://t.co/ShuOhAzDCu

— WhatIfIHadAMusicBlog (@WIIHAMB) September 3, 2015

I finally posted my first ever legit real interview at the start of the month. It's actually cool and not boring, so it would be actually cool if you checked it out.

Finally, I probably can't leave without saying that I went to see Halsey's first UK show early this month and it was... insightful. I wouldn't say that I didn't enjoy it but... it was a weird one to be a part of.

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ICYMI - This Week on WIIHAMB - 2015 Week #38

In case you missed it - You shouldn't have, but just in case you did.


I am so unbelievably tired. I'm currently trying to catch up on the sleep I missed last Saturday night and it's really just not working out for me. I went and saw Chinah play The Lexington on Thursday which was super cool, they were so good, and now all that I am is annoyed that I could have seen them twice this month. I saw State Champs as well, which was cool because I don't really go to that many rock things anymore and for some reason I'm seeing them again next Saturday too - yolo right?
Everything this week is "excellent" - no really, I actually used that word in every post.

Keep up to date with all of the daily goings-on over at WIIHAMB Daily.

Sunday
Erik Hassle, I have no idea what you’re doing or how you’re doing it but it sounds incredible. I always feel sad about Erik Hassle, I feel like he should be a much bigger global pop success than he is. Especially when you just roll out tracks like ‘Natural Born Lovers’. I've been absolutely rinsing this all week because it's just so excellent. There's also now an official video for this which is great.


Monday
I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to get around to posting this new Lostboycrow song. ‘Powers’ may be the strongest vocal performance we’ve heard from the Californian so far, which is pretty impressive because everything else we’ve heard so far has been excellent. Forever stoked on Lostboycrow.


Ellie Goulding can do and will never do no wrong. ‘On My Mind’ is just another slice of pop masterpiece from Goulding’s ever-growing catalogue of excellence. I don’t think that this is much of a drastic change of direction for her either. Of course it’s very different from anything on ‘Lights’ but it’s not miles away from Halcyon’s sound overall. Not one iota of me is going to be able to wait patiently for her album which is due for release at the start of November.


Tuesday
Once I got into it, I really enjoyed some of Troye Sivan’s recent Wild EP, including but not limited to this track ‘Fools’. But it did take me a little while to get past the fact that it was Troye Sivan. Overall the EP seemed much more mature than what I thought he was capable of releasing. Glades are a Sydney based The XX/Chvrches-esque trio and their cover of ‘Fools’ is absolutely stunning. And it’s also available as a free download on Soundcloud, BONUS.


Wednesday
Samm Henshaw’s debut EP The Sound Experiment finally saw its actual real life release this week! ‘Autonomy (Slave)’ features on that EP and it's really cool, as is all of Samm Henshaw’s music. Henshaw’s vocals in particular are so strong and pretty unique, there aren’t many people so young coming out with this calibre of music. Henshaw is also playing some headline dates at the start of November - great news!


Throwback Thursday
This week Evanescence’s ‘Bring Me To Life’ led me to create a playlist which I called Manson & Friends, featuring a load of good and bad 00′s rock. I was reminded of this song by Stone Sour. I want to say it was their debut single? Regardless, eight years on it still sounds excellent.


Friday
TĀLĀ and MssingNo are both London based artists who have paved an amazing platform for Korean girl group WA$$UP’s to storm into our lives. I enjoy K-pop as a standalone thing anyway, but when it’s entwined into a track like this that’s almost “gritty” in an electronic pop crossover way, it sounds so excellent.


Saturday
I’m a little muddled about Etham’s back story but the bottom line is that ‘Cold Love’ is the first song to be taken from a new project courtesy of the London based artiste. ‘Cold Love’ is probably one of the most mature tracks I’ve heard this week - and I don’t really know what that means, but mature feels like a good word to use to describe this song. Etham’s vocals are excellent and there’s a perfect balance of guitar solo that doesn’t make the song feel self-indulgent at all.


September playlists so far: YouTube / Spotify / Deezer

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ICYMI - This Week on WIIHAMB - 2015 Week #37

In case you missed it - You shouldn't have, but just in case you did.

Another cool couple of shows this week in the form of Oh Wonder's live debut and Hildamay's not reformation (???). Also it would appear that Alexisonfire are officially a band again, which really agitates me, and I may or may not, realistically I probably won't, do a post about that. I may also do a post about Chloe Grace Moretz and the music she likes and how she goes about posting it... but then again I also probably won't. Let's get on with this shall we.

Keep up to date with all of the daily goings-on over at WIIHAMB Daily.

Sunday
I’ve heard a few Ava James songs over the past couple of months and they were good but I wasn’t hooked… until I heard ‘Between Sheets’. There’s no question about the calibre of artists James is working with on the prodcution side of things. On previous tracks she’s paired up with Tropics and Maths Time Joy, and now Leo Kalyan has taken the reins. James’ voice is huge and undeniably the focal point of this song. Who knows what could be next for this London based 21 year old.


Monday
Oh so you like Florence + The Machine, but you don’t like listening to Florence + The Machine songs? That sounds weird, but it’s a thing I suffer from. And luckily Fours are here to cure this horrible disease. Frontwoman Edith Violet’s vocals are very reminiscent of Welch’s and matched with bouncy indie-pop the result is magical. Along with this track, ‘Leave Me’, the other two tracks from Fours’ Everything I Never Said EP are also on their Soundcloud page and they are both great. I really didn't give 'Leave Me' enough credit in my original post, the song, the lyrics, everything are so so so great. I've genuinely listened the Fours' EP about 30 times this week.


Tuesday
“Zara Larsson? Natalie, are you sure?” Believe me, I was skeptical, I mean, I thoroughly enjoy MNEK’s music but I’m not a Zara Larsson fan. Upon listening to ‘Never Forget You’ everything I ever thought I believed flew, darted, in fact, out the window. This. Is. A. Banger. It builds like the most perfect pop song should. A duet that you just had no idea would work AND IT DOES. More excellent random collabs in the future please, universe.


Wednesday
AQUILO GOES POP. And it’s alright, you know. I’m not in love with the chorus, but this seems like a cool direction for the duo and for the album that they’re apparently making.This song is actually far better than I’ve made out in this post, it is really good, you should listen to it, you might as well, it's right here.


Throwback Thursday
Listening back to Hadouken in 2015 is very peculiar and the first question you find yourself asking is “did I really used to enjoy this?”. I think I did, which is absolutely mind-blowing. ‘House Is Falling’ along with that ingenious 90s sample on ‘Mic Check’ are the only two Hadouken songs that are worth listening to five years on. ‘House Is Falling’ should have been a huge hit really, actually a genuinely great pop/dancerock (or whatever genre this is, post-grindie?) crossover. Ah well.


Friday
It’s fair to say that I was quite excited when I saw that Great Good Fine Ok had put out a new song. The Brooklyn based duo only release tracks that make you want to walk down the street pretending you’re in an epic summer music video even when it’s monsoon weather (a la London right now) and ‘Take It Or Leave It’ is no different. Their vocals are always really strong too, soft effortless tones that blend so well with the rest of everything.


Saturday
Don’t be fooled, Keyes’ ‘Black Magic’ isn’t a cover of the latest Little Mix single, although I have no doubt that that would sound excellent. ‘Black Magic’ is in fact Keyes’ follow up to previous single ‘Veins’ which I posted and I loved, and I still love. I had no idea that Keyes was from the UK (I bet I did, and I’d just forgotten) but it’s cool that someone new and not from the US is making fun pop songs like this.


Finally a Disclosure song from the new album that I like, and there’s not even a guest feature! Howard Laurence himself takes on vocal duties on ‘Jaded’ and it’s so much better than any of the tracks the brothers took sole control of on their debut. I’m hopeful that some of the songs on their upcoming album ‘Caracal’ will be equally as good as this is.


September playlists so far: YouTube / Spotify / Deezer

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ICYMI - This Week on WIIHAMB - 2015 Week #36

In case you missed it - You shouldn't have, but just in case you did.

Gig drought has ended and this week I've never felt more like a legit music blogger (I'm sure I probably have but whatever) because I went to see both Alessia Cara and Halsey play their first shows in London. Along with those I've had some not okay cold/flu like symptoms causing me to bail  on a couple of other gigs but you can't have it all, can you? Batman Arkham Knight has also taken over my life recently so forgive me for the #content recently - the songs are still great, just the writing is more rushed.

Keep up to date with all of the daily goings-on over at WIIHAMB Daily.

Sunday
Some times I do really dumb things. This was one of those times because I did not go and see Danish three-piece Chinah play this month’s New Shapes. I'm annoyed with myself. ‘We Go Back’ is only the second track Chinah have shared online, following up from ‘Away From Me’ a couple of months ago. If both of these songs are any sign of what’s to come from this trio, we should be in for a real treat.


Monday
So I posted Transviolet’s debut track ‘Girls Your Age’ a little while ago and it was by far my most popular post to date. WHICH WAS REALLY COOL. This is the four-piece’s follow up track and it’s a lot more “pop”, which I’m really into. I don’t think I would have liked ‘Girls Your Age’ as much as I did if it weren’t for the lyrical content, but I prefer ‘Bloodstream’ overall much more, it’s more of a #banger - like, more Halsey, less Lana Del Rey.


I’m still waiting for the ‘Elevated’ from this second State Champs album, you know, THE BANGER. ‘All You Are Is History’ is far closer to rock hit status than the other couple of tracks we’ve heard so far, much closer. I do take issue with an aspect of the video though… in 2015, who still owns one of those huge camcorders and a VCR?! We’re in a digital age. I would have smashed that up too and just recorded the video on my phone and Whatsapped it to Derek.


Tuesday
Honne seem to have a lot of songs about jetsetting. In ‘No Place Like Home’ in particular it’s 2am in Tokyo. From this and ‘Coastal Love’ from the duo’s fist EP, we can only assume that the pair (and maybe even Jones as well) are very well travelled. This song is really nice, but it’s quite mellow and I’m currently trying to work out if it counts as a ballad or not, because we all know that I don’t like ballads, but I do like this, so I’m not really sure where I stand. ‘No Place Like Home’ is taken from Honne’s second EP ‘Over Lover’ which came out last week and is £2 on iTunes!


Wednesday
Every other blog ever has already posted this so I thought I would post it like a year later too. (This track was only uploaded like a week ago so I’m not actually late at all.) And, also, don’t get me wrong, I’m not posting this because everybody else has, I’m posting it because it’s great. It’s quite Oh Wonder, a little, like, if you like Oh Wonder, realistically, you’re probably going to like this. Both Tep No and Heather Janssen are from Canada, which is nice isn’t it, music from Canada that isn't Drake, The Weeknd or Justin Bieber.


Throwback Thursday
In all honesty, asking the office what track I should post for TBT always ends in disaster and leads to a really long winded journey to the song I actually end up posting. Today was no different. And today, we were led to the real MVP Mary J. Blige and her ‘Family Affair’.


Friday
Upon hearing ‘Do It Well’ for the first time I decided on a new judging system for tracks - AS I DO EVERY TIME I POST TOM ASPAUL. I thought, from now on I’ll rate every track on a scale of ‘YAS!’ to ‘YAAAAAS!’. I then soon decided that this was a ridiculous idea and it was binned soon after I rated ‘Do It Well’ a strong YAAAAS! This track fits the mood perfectly as we cling on to the final morsels of summer 2015 this weekend.


Saturday
Back when SG Lewis released the first track from his Shivers EP, ‘No Less’, I saw that there was a JP Cooper collab to follow and I was #stoked. The press release refers to ‘Shivers’ as a “piano-lead ballad” which is awful news because we all know I loathe ballads… but under WIIHAMB rules I am declaring this not a ballad and actually thoroughly enjoyable. SG Lewis is playing his debut live show for New Shapes on 4th November… which is excellent news, UNLESS LIKE ME YOU’RE SEEING JACK GARRATT THAT NIGHT AND IT’S ACTUALLY TERRIBLE NEWS. However, if you are free, you should go, it’s £4 and you can get a ticket on Dice <3 data-blogger-escaped-br="">

September playlists so far: YouTube / Spotify / Deezer

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ICYMI - This Week on WIIHAMB - 2015 Week #35

In case you missed it - You shouldn't have, but just in case you did.

Life is life and things are things. I did nothing of note this week, and nothing of note really happened this week. I also haven't been to a live show of any sort for two and a half weeks now. This should even itself out nicely this coming week, but will I even remember what it's like to go to a gig?! Who knows. I went a little off the rails last month, lazy posts and posting the same artist more than once a couple times. I wanna get out of that habit so hopefully September will be an improvement in that respect. Seeing as I have nothing more interesting to say, let's cut to the chase.

Keep up to date with all of the daily goings-on over at WIIHAMB Daily.

Sunday
On Sunday I shared some thoughts about Jonny Craig. Jonny Craig fronted five piece Slaves have just released their second album ‘Routine Breathing’, a speedy follow up to last years debut ‘Through Art We Are All Equals’. This single isn’t amazing but this post isn’t really about this song. Jonny Craig gets so much stick 24/7 about absolutely everything and I do not deem it necessary and I really want to get that off my chest. It makes me really sad that at only 29 years old he’s stuck in this rut of making really average rock music, but a part of me believes that if he came out with something absolutely incredible in a new project no one would take any notice because “it’s Jonny Craig”. It’s all a bit of a shame really.


Monday

SUMMER ROUND-UP

I went to a load of cool things and listened to a load of cool stuff this summer. WIIHAMB was cool for the summer… and hopefully for longer…


Tuesday
I don’t really know much about Seaway, but I’d sort of written them off as just another pop punk band that my friend Courtney really likes. ‘Freak’ is the first single to be taken from their new album ‘Colour Blind’ which is out in October. And ‘Freak’ is actually really good, I can’t really explain why, but it has a slightly more old school pop punk feel as opposed to just being another The Story So Far/Neck Deep replica. (Some would say that being a The Story So Far/Neck Deep replica isn’t a bad thing… but I would say it is.)


Wednesday
I don’t mean to keep posting and going on about Jerry Williams but I do. ‘Boy Oh Boy’ was the first song I heard from her taken from an SBTV session but the studio version was only released towards the end of last month from her Cold Beer EP. I have similar feels with Banks as I do with Williams and this track, how can someone who seems so great have as much “boy trouble” as depicted in this song?! How is that a thing?! Mind-blowing but if the results come in the form of songs like ‘Boy Oh Boy’ I guess it’s okay.


Thursday

A Chat with The Gospel Youth at Hevy Fest: "We Still Have a Massive Point to Prove"

It would be really cool if you checked this out. I spent an actual huge amount of time on it, not just because it was the first interview I'd done but also because another zine kind of asked all of the same stuff and put out his interview on the same day mine was going up and it didn't read particularly well. SO I MADE MINE BETTER *various smug emojis*. Also TGY just released a lyric video for the title (and best) track from their latest EP.


Friday
I had no idea Zak Abel was even up to something let alone releasing a new EP last month. Abel’s new seven track EP (SEVEN TRACKS! This is almost an album!) is called ‘One Hand On The Future’ and it has some really cool simple yet effective artwork. ‘Say Sumthin’ is taken from this new EP and it’s about Abel not being able to get hold of someone who was on a plane and he was totally freaking out. I really love the female backing vocals, they add such a nice element to the track as a whole and just work so well.


I’ve really struggled with which song from Alessia Cara’s debut EP Four Pink Walls to post on here. I mean, it was a toss up now between the title track and ‘I’m Yours’. I love both songs so much but in the end it’s come down to the fact that I like the video for ‘Four Pink Walls’ more than the video for ‘I’m Yours’. So here it is. It’s now come to my attention that I don’t have much else to say about this song or the EP. It came out a week ago so, everyone has heard this release already, right? I mean, if you haven’t you definitely should.


Saturday
Waaaaaay back in March I first posted Maala and there were about zero things on the internet about who he was. Six months later the New Zealand based singer has released his debut self-titled EP as well as a video for recent single ‘In The Air’. This track along with the rest of the EP make me feel feelings that I genuinely didn’t know that I had the capacity to feel.


September playlists so far: YouTube / Spotify / Deezer

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A Chat with The Gospel Youth at Hevy Fest: We Still Have a Massive Point to Prove

Hevy was a weekend of firsts for myself and The Gospel Youth. At the very end of my chat with Julian Bowen (guitar) and Max Wingell (drums), I admitted that not only was this my first time at Hevy, I had also just completed my first real interview. Max confessed that this had too been his first interview with the band. Personal triumphs aside, Hevy Fest was also The Gospel Youth's first festival "and it wasn't even full band," laughs Julian.

The Gospel Youth opened Hevy on the Thursday night as an acoustic three piece (Julian joined by singer Sam Little and guitarist Kev Deverick, whilst Max took the night off) but the weather had taken a turn for the worst just before the band were due on stage. "There were storm warnings," Julian explains. "They said they might have to close the tent so we were like quick let's just get our set over with now so at least we've played." The Gospel Youth ended up starting half an hour early, "which was a bit of a shame,'" Max adds. "Because obviously people were expecting [us at] 7:40." It dawns on Julian just how early they'd taken to the stage as I confess to missing the majority of their set. "Yeah, we kind of panicked a bit."

Despite the hiccup, Julian explains how much they'd enjoyed the set. "We only had four songs but it was good to hopefully leave people wanting more." Max could have stayed at home but it wasn't only the free beer that The Gospel Youth were hanging around all weekend at Hevy for, some of the band's biggest influences were playing over the weekend. As I ask the pair who they're looking forward to seeing, I clock that Julian is sporting a The Dillenger Escape Plan t-shirt, so his answer was obvious. "I think A Wilhelm Scream for me," answers Max. I saw the pair towards the end of A Wilhelm Scream's set and it was clear that the flow of beers had been plentiful. "And Track Boat are fucking awesome," adds Julian. "And As It Is, looking forward to seeing those guys as well."



Whilst The Gospel Youth jump into a scene of other new Brighton based bands like Trash Boat and As It Is, it's easy to forget that these guys have been following their dreams as musicians for longer than most of their peers. Everybody has been in bands before reaching the band that they're in but The Gospel Youth have been in bands we've actually heard of - The Auteur, Fleeing From Finales, various others I couldn't name. I suggested that they were effectively like an underground British supergroup. They weren't too sure. "We've all been in a couple of bands that wanted to kind of 'make it' and when those bands failed it just kind of made sense to get together and start something else," explains Julian. "Jules and I actually went to college together when we were 17," continues Max. "I've been in so many bands since then. People kind of quit music and settle down and that's fair enough but for me I think 'I'm good at what I do, I'm gonna stick to it' and opportunities arise like joining this band, for example. I was like yeah, I'm gonna grab it by the horns."

I was intrigued about how musicians approach new projects like this. Do you start entirely from scratch, or do you ever incorporate things that you didn't get a chance to do in a previous band, or maybe actively avoid things that you did do in other bands? Max offered a very balanced response. "Being in many different bands, we've played so many shows with different people and different line-ups. I think you take what you learn from your mistakes and push it forwards. Some bands don't, they have it there and then but I don't think I've ever been in a band where it's a smooth path to bigger things." Julian continues, "To get to this point in previous bands it's taken absolute years whereas now we kind of know what we're doing."

They're being modest. At the time of this interview the quartet's second EP 'Empires' had been out for exactly one month and it had been going down a treat. "It's quite a lot different to the stuff we released when we first announced ourselves as a band but people are taking it really well," says Julian. "We kind of wanted to show that we can do songs that aren't as wet as 'Kids', just songs with a bit more balls behind them." It wasn't just the fans who were interested in 'Empires' though. Rock sound streamed the EP a week before its release. "For the people that pre-ordered it I kind of felt like we cheated them a little bit. I think we actually gave them the EP as the Rock Sound stream went up but to be honest, it's been so long that we've been sitting on the songs, I was happy that people could finally hear them."

Naturally, the next step for The Gospel Youth would be to take this release out on the road. And whaddaya know, they have two short runs planned for the Autumn! "We haven't actually toured yet," says Julian. "We've done gigs but we've not done tours. The first one is with Verses who we're really good friends with." I'd spotted a couple of Verses the night before and upon mentioning this, Max delved into a confession about not recognising Fish from the band when they'd seen each other the previous evening. He was very apologetic. Julian continues, "Me and Kev have known Verses probably about ten years, they're really awesome guys and, yeah, looking forward to that tour." The Gospel Youth's second tour in the coming months is with Bad Ideas. Max was more than ready to sing their praises. "They played Groezrock this year and they're just such a hardworking band for the style of music they play. They absolutely grind at it. They're so good at what they do as well so that's gonna be a pleasure."



I felt like this was an opportune moment to jump the gun... or maybe even leap the cannon to look a little further into the future and ask about an album. The pair were holding their cards close to their respective chests to say the least. "We've got some stuff down," says Max. "I don't think it's gonna take us long to write and release." So that's promising, it looks like it won't be a particularly lengthy wait for a full length record. "We can't really sit back now, we still have a massive point to prove. We're constantly writing anyway so it's not like we're gonna stop doing that. So, it's in the works," concludes Julian.

Now, I know that from the second you found yourself on this here web page, there's been one question that you've been absolutely dying to know the answer to. Max and Julian, what's your favourite sandwich filling? Max jumps in with very little hesitation, "Smoked salmon and cream cheese. Can it be two?" The fact that Max had named two fillings was the very least of my worries. I needed to know what bread sandwiched these two elements together, because if I'm having salmon and cream cheese you gotta be damn sure it's in a bagel.  He responded with "Wholewheat bread". I didn't let it be known at the time, but I was struck with absolute horror, but the reasoning did become a little clearer. "I'm not a bagel fan. It’s the Tesco’s Finest ones, if I’ve got a bit of spare change I’ll go all the way and get Tesco’s finest salmon and cream cheese. Beast."

Julian was a lot more open to options, "As long as it hasn’t got mayo in it, I’ll eat it, just mayo I can not do, no fucking way." But Max wanted a real answer... and honestly, so did I. "Okay, right, best sandwich filling: chicken, chorizo, pesto and that’s it, those. As long as it’s got no mayo in I’m all good."

"There we go, we got there in the end," Max finishes. Indeed we did lads, indeed we did.

You can buy and stream The Gospel Youth's Empire EP all over the internet but you're probably just interested in an iTunes and a Spotify link, aren't you?