Daisy Grenade – Real Horror Show
Genre: Pop Punk, Grunge
Similar artists: Charly Bliss, Pup The Band
“My execution date is set and I’ve been holding my breath since then“. You only get one chance at a first impression and Daisy Grenade are not about to miss theirs. As Ray Davies taught all future songwriters, ideally a song should follow the same pattern as trying to chat somebody up in a nightclub. If you’re opening line isn’t a winner, you’re unlikely to get to mention your sensational hobby of collecting spiders.
The latter is, in all honesty, the trouble with most modern songwriting. You see, pop artists have grown really clever and educated. The music industry no longer ensures communication on their behalf with a would-be audience. Consequently, the majority of tremendously smart young artists, turn into tremendously dull ones.
Not here though. Daisy Grenade’s Real Horror Show is comic-book shlock delivered with lyrical hooks that are easy to remember. You could call this cheap. But, you’d be calling charisma cheap. Daisy Grenade’s brand of pop-punk, which they label “bubble grunge“, keeps the clever lines, smoothes the edges of modern rock, and is as cheerful and hard to get out of your head as a decades-old jingle for ice cream.
AFTER LONDON – Here, Tonite
Genre: Post-Punk
Similar artists: Fontaines DC, Estrons, Calva Louise
Everyone’s forced to bet on the future somehow. This is why everyone. Involved as they must be, do their very best to understand at least one facet of the world and then try and profit from its evolution. Call it gambling if you will. But, great people have enriched or destroyed their life for much less.
If there is one trend that I am confident will continue well into the future, provided that are the world will continue to exist, it is entertainment about regular people having some form of a nervous breakdown. You see, most entertainment can be broken down into two categories. There are movies, songs, plays, etc. about winning unbelievable wealth and happiness. And, there are those about boiling over with anger, expressing your feelings, and freeing yourself from the things that bind you. None of these two are, usually very believable.
AFTER LONDON’s Here, Tonite is an honest slice of positive thinking followed by disastrous events. It’s the PMA book blurb rejected by the publishing house. It’s the morale check-up that doesn’t make the news. And, it’s the unglamorous truth that doesn’t get shared by your friends on Instagram. “OK I get it, I start living in the present, I turned up, then came Armageddon” is not just one of the most clever lines in recent memory. This is also a line that helps define the story of our times. AFTER LONDON’s anthemic post-punk is more honest than most of what their contemporaries are producing at the moment.
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