Image courtesy of risetoremain.com

Before opening the case of Rise To Remain’s debut album City of Vultures, it’s clear that the music contained within is going to be brutal. However the gory picture of a cannibalistic Vulture on the sleeve hides more than just a mindless metal album.

Rise To Remain successfully combine heavy guitars, screamed vocals and metal drum beats with big melodic choruses to make music that’s not only intense but also memorable. A live set from them would surely get the crowd moving and singing along and it’s a recipe that’s worked very well for bands like Trivium and Bullet For My Valentine in the past.

Performances on the album are clean and well produced throughout, Austin Dickinson’s vocals are varied and strong, whilst riff and guitar work is slightly less wide-ranging yet still exciting.

Highlights from the album include This Day is Mine and Power Through Fear for their catchy riffs and non stop intensity, the only break from this coming in the form of songs like Roads and We Will Last Forever where the pace slows for a brief moment.

Rise To Remain certainly show promise at this early stage and have all the makings of some of the more established metal bands around. Their music is both memorable and well executed and the pace is constant from track to track. With the first album pressed onto CD and a 42 date tour scheduled from now until the end of the year, the band can hopefully begin to develop ideas and music to further expand their growing reputation as a contender in the metal genre.

Rise To Remain will be playing at: Yeovil Liberal Club (08/09/11), Southampton Joiners (09/09/11) and Southampton Guildhall (01/12/11).

Hang on, SSfans? Don't meet Max Mosley. You will absolutely definitely not be friends.

 Suicide Silence: A band ready to change the way you think about music, inspirational and divine, they must have been inspired by the touch of Jehova himself and so inspired decided they should spread the word through their followers so all can benefit from their wisdom.

Ha ha just kidding. It’s generic metal.

The problem with this generic metal is that it’s also not very good generic metal. In fact, as far as generic metal goes it’s basically an old aluminium can.

This can also could have been good. But it is bland.

 The song has absolutely no high point, not even when it ends, because it’s at that point that you realise you have wasted some of your life, which ironically is the subject matter of the song. Not that you can tell though, the grunted lyrics are incredibly hard to make out, worse than attempting to listen to Nirvana underwater.

This strikes me as distinctly weird. Grunted metal vocals should never be boring. Yet somehow this song has managed to sound utterly unimpressive, as though the singer is in his bedroom and his mum doesn’t want him to be too loud.

The instrumental is also uninspired, repeating the same few riffs ad nauseum. Not all is lost though, as one part sounds like a man farting into a tuba.

Stop. Do not fart into your tuba. This will void the warranty.

Suicide Silence then. Dull, boring, bland, insipid, and bad for you, like choking on beige paint.

Si Crockett wanders on stage backed by the incredible Si Genaro, harmonica extraordinaire, and Nacho Jase on the bongo drums. His chances are good.

The first of four acts for the BMTH Unplugged grand finale, his opening number is simple but confident, conjuring images of the desert, mostly through the bongo drums and mournful harmonica of Mr Genaro.

A somewhat predictable cover of Jason Mraz’ “I’m Yours”  is given new life with the bongos and harp, although the image of a man with an acoustic guitar singing that song will always be that of a man trying desperately to get a girl’s pants off. He does look like he’s having fun though. A sped up outro is a breath of fresh air after the horrifically cliche sentimental lyrics.  (Irony)

He moves on to a Nirvana-esque bit of grunge, although with falsetto vocals and less sentimental lyrics.

Si Genaro makes a perfect partner for Crockett, stealing the show with his eccentric dancing and phenomenal harmonica.

Although it'd be nice to see Tubbs

A serious contender for the BMTH Unplugged crown, Crockett plays a slick, if unoriginal performance, evidenced by the riff from “You’re a selfish spiteful bitch” lifted straight from a T-Rex best hits, and the rhythm from an old steam train.

There’s nothing particularly new or original in Crocketts performance, but that’s not always a bad thing. Like bacon, it is generic but brilliant.

Next up is Chris Woodford, equipped with a twelve string guitar and probably some anger management issues as he proceeds to beat that guitar to within an inch of its life.

Rattling off a storm of notes which sounds like the battle of Passchendaele taking place in a guitar store, Woodford is a man of awe-inspiring technical skill. Watching any performance of his is similar to running headlong into a wall of lemon flavoured marshmallow: satisfying, but it leaves a sour taste in your mouth as you realise that nothing you do will ever be that good.

In spite of this it’s difficult to see Chris Woodford claiming the crown. He’d be great in a cavernous concert hall, but in the confines of a local the note storm rips through your brain like a brain damaged hippo trying to seduce a china shop: lots of noise, and you can’t help but admire it. In other words “Chris you insane bastard how are you doing that?! Your guitar is going to summon dread Cthulu who will devour us all! Flee my children, begone from this place!”

Good though. Incredible.

In stark contrast to the opening two acts, Phil King is more laid back, taking to the stage on his own with a chilled folk set. Sounding very similar to REM, he doesn’t sound at all as he looks, just going to prove you should never judge a book by its cover.

Actually, this book is fairly obvious

As befits the BMTH Unplugged grand finale the skill shown is extremely high, but the crowd don’t seem as interested in King’s performance, possibly due to his position as the third act, a time when audience attention often begins to wane. Poor bugger.

Still, he’s worth looking up if you like REM, but unlikely to take the crown.

A cover of the Beatles’ “Come Together” marks the absolute highlight of the evening, a boost of energy for the crowd, going down perfectly, like a hungry hooker in a recession.

Finally, with a massive round of applause comes Krista Green. Smiling throughout, she is a charisma supernova, a mixture of the laid back vibe of Phil King and the infectious fun of Si Crockett.

She is the most balanced of all the artists on show. Throughout the contest she has been plagued with technical problems, and tonight is no exception. She handles it with a laugh and a joke, smiling all the way.

She slows down for “Let’s Rewind”, one of her strongest songs, with a catchy hook that Simon Cowell would give his right testicle for. Towards the end of the set, we see musical talent runs in the family as he brother leaps on stage to play harmonica. While lacking the virtuosity of Si Genaro, the extra instrument mixes perfectly, like Jesus would if he was working in a cocktail bar.

AND THE WINNER IS…

While you can, in a sense, say that they were all winners, this isn’t strictly true. Krista Green was the overall winner, and will be doing a tour of O’Neills pubs in the not so distant future.

The Pierces are two very beautiful and very talented sisters who were raised in Alabama and trained to become professional ballet dancers, before turning their attention to music. After several false starts in the industry, they were finally discovered by Guy Berryman of Coldplay, and this EP is a little teaser before the release of their album You & I in May.

Starting with title track You’ll Be Mine, the first thing you hear is a hippie rhythm underlined by those brilliant bead shakers you used to fight over in school music lessons. The girls then come in with beautiful summery harmonies, giving the track a very relaxing and chilled out tone. Even when the guitar and heavier beats enter the song still keeps an air of serenity in the build up.

The second song is Piece of You, and the vocals are accompanied by a very understated piano line, before the introduction of guitars. Of the three tracks this really does have a Coldplay edge to it – for some reason you can really visualise Chris Martin’s vocals, but that’s not to say that The Pierces don’t sing it beautifully themselves.

Me and him is the last unique song (as track four is an acoustic rendition of You’ll Be Mine). Me and Him also makes use of opening with a single instrument accompanying the vocals, this time the instrument being guitar. This one has a very Irish/country style sense to it, whilst also carrying some of the girl’s free-spirited hippy roots. Although the lyrics come across as somewhat pessimistic, it’s not in such a way that it becomes heavy and depressing to listen too.

This style of music really isn’t something I would usually listen to, and if I’m being entirely honest I don’t think it’s likely I’ll be putting this on repeat on my iPod, but it is definitely something I would listen to again, particularly if I was looking for some chilled out music for some “me time”. It’ll be interesting to see what the girls have in store for the album due May 23rd.

Apparently the reasoning behind the unusual names is that drummer Guy Lawrence’s dad runs an auction house, and allowed the band to practice upstairs in the disused living quarters. So that clears one thing up… but it still leaves me a bit confused by the single itself.

It’s Andrew Smith’s keyboard work which really stands out and works for me, but for some reason it just isn’t complimented by Joseph Sigee’s vocals. That’s not to say that he’s not a good singer, it’s clear to see he’s very talented – I just don’t think the mix is quite right.

Having become friends in sixth form college, it appears that they were all in different bands before they came together to form Auction, which possibly accounts for the fact that their sounds don’t exactly sit right together.

I can imagine the instrumental version of this track would be used in an ITV2 commercial, but that’s about as far as it goes, with lyrics or without. It’s a shame because if you listen to the track a few times to appreciate the different sounds separately, you can tell these boys have got talent and with a little more time to get to understand each other’s styles and qualities, I think they could come up with some half decent material.

And I was right. Hooked in by the Bloc Party/Editors style guitar riff straight from the beginning, you’re led to a chorus which is emphasised by gang vocals that you can easily imagine large crowds joining in with.

The lyrics are fairly basic, but in turn this makes them easy to remember, which is often the key to a song’s success in the charts. The boys have also laid off the obligatory American twang in their voices, which makes a really welcome change as a lot of British acts tend to think this is the way to make it big.

The track also makes heavy use of synth giving the track an almost 80s feel, whilst still managing to ground itself in the field of 2011 pop rock.

Though I wouldn’t go out of my way to say this will be a huge hit for the year, I hope for my sake that this track gets the attention it deserves – if not I’m going to have to keep telling everyone I meet what the song is that I keep humming and singing along to…

Love To Life is to be released on 17 April, with debut album Small Talk being released on 2 May.

If you’re interested in seeing Twenty Twenty, the lads are supporting The Wanted at the BIC on 9 April – I think the headliners better watch out, or at least up their game!

Support: DJ Skeet Skeet, Yelle

You’ve got to hand it to Katy Perry’s promotions team. From projecting her new video onto the side of the iMax (at least it was useful for something) to selling sweets and pumping the scent of candy floss throughout the concert hall, there was an instant impact as Candyland hit Bournemouth.

Opening act Yelle seemed an unusual choice of support – being French the majority of her vocals were in her mother tongue, which had the effect of somewhat disconnecting her with the British audience in a Eurovision kind of way. In her defence, she did perform a memorable rendition of Robyn’s Who’s That Girl, named Qui Est Cette Fille, which may well have been a nod to the fact that Robyn was Katy’s support in mainland Europe.

Next up was DJ Skeet Skeet, who must have the easiest job ever – playing other people’s music with very little mixing or mashing and getting paid for it. Genius. Nevertheless, he showcased John Legend’s Deep South take on Adele’s Rolling In The Deep and a few current club hits which made for a more interesting transition between acts than your average gig gives you.

And here it was, the moment the under 14s, ladies and dragged along boyfriends had been waiting for – the California Girl herself. The candy floss cloud screen played a video of Katy being sacked from a Sweeny Todd style butcher’s shop before going to the baker’s and buying a cupcake. I had fully prepared myself for falling down a Wonderland-esque rabbit hole, but it turned out Katy was taking the audience and her beloved cat, Kitty Purry, into a Wizard of Oz style dream world.

The beautiful Mrs Brand then emerged from the top of her candy cane and lollipop staircase, adorned in a sequined tutu, to sing her number two hit Teenage Dream. The candy cane backing singers and cupcake-tattooed dancers then led her into Teenage Dream album track Hummingbird Heartbeat.

Having released two high-charting pop albums, Katy had an abundance of tracks to choose from to perform on the night, and equally an enormous wardrobe to choose from – Katy must have had at least 20 costume changes throughout the night. Favourite songs were Waking Up in Vegas, the flamboyant innuendo-fest Peacock, a saucy vintage rendition of I Kissed A Girl and a touching and heartfelt performance of Not Like the Movies, with a backdrop of cartoon couples in love.

One of the major stand out performances included Katy’s latest single E.T. which made great use of laser and spotlighting effects to help convey the abduction theme. After the show Katy was to find out that E.T. had got to number one in the Billboard 100 – the forth number one from the Teenage Dream album and her fifth on the chart.

Katy took time out from singing to tell the crowd how much she loved Bournemouth and the English as a whole, calling herself an “honorary one” and flashing her wedding ring from her marriage to the infamous Russell Brand. She then invited the crowd to throw pounds onto the stage and she would perform as a jukebox. She shouted out the names of several artists – not making the mistake of mentioning Justin Bieber as she did in London’s Hammersmith Apollo – before doing some broken down covers of Rihanna’s Only Girl (In the World), Jay-Z’s Big Pimpin’, Lady Gaga’s Born This Way and Willow Smith’s Whip My Hair.

Katy kept her charm going by inviting topless male audience members onto the stage and offering kisses to fans, and it was a combination of her bubbly personality and the incredible stage set that helped gig-goers forget about any dropped notes. She also invited younger fans to join her on stage for her version of Whitney Houston’s I Wanna Dance With Somebody, some of which found it hard to let go of her and leave the stage.

When the lights dimmed, it was apparent that Katy Perry needed to come back for an encore, having missed out three of her major hit singles. She returned for the costume-fest Hot N Cold, where her outfits miraculously changed in clouds of confetti and a pyrotechnic fuelled performance of Firework, which really made use of the height and space available on the BIC stage. The finale was, of course, California Girls, where Katy was joined by dancing gingerbread men and the audience were showered with candy confetti. She thanked everyone for hanging out with her on the launch night of her E.T. video, and seemed thoroughly genuine in saying so.

The whole night served as a welcome break from all the heavy and tragic news stories that have been hitting the headlines throughout the start of this year, and for that I think many will thank Katy Perry for some lighthearted relief and a chance to relive our childhoods for one night. Well done Katy and congratulations on your success with E.T.

More photos from our photographer George Turner:

Click to view slideshow.

The Old Fire Station, Bournemouth

Support: Brigitte Aphrodite

If you thought that “girl power” died out when the Spice Girls separated, you’d better think again.

London’s Kate Nash has a bee in her bonnet after learning that just 14% of PRP (that’s the company that pays artists royalties when their songs are played) goes to female songwriters, and yesterday’s gig was a perfect opportunity to aid the launch of her After School Rock N Roll Club for Girls.

The show opened with a video of interview clips with various female artists that Kate had recorded to illustrate her case, including some points from yesterday’s eclectic opening act, Brigitte Aphrodite.

Following the video, Brigitte and her band took to the stage donned in gold glitter. As Kate’s support, it was to be expected that Brigitte would be a little be quirky and very enthusiastic. Her style and persona were reflected in the titles and the lyrics of her songs, which included Streets of Bromley, Miss Hedonistic and Dance With a Stranger. The subject matter of each song kept the audience laughing and promising to download her first single, I Dream Myself Awake.

With the audience nicely warmed up, a thunderstorm erupted and Kate’s all girl band got into position, before she entered in a cut-out black mini dress, cat-style hat and black hearts on her cheeks.

Kicking off with I Just Love You More and Do-Wah-Doo, the audience lapped up Kate’s passion and her homemade-looking set of a giant umbrella lamp and curtain backdrop.

She continued to play crowd-pleaser Mouthwash before asking for her keyboard microphone to be fixed and disappearing outside. Having left the stage, her band were left looking utterly confused and desperately trying to fill the silence with an impromptu jam. Eventually she returned, revealing that she had gone to put on some lipstick because she felt “naked” without it.

She slipped back into performing Don’t You Want to Share the Guilt? and then introduced her anti-homophobic song I’ve Got A Secret. She also performed her poem Mansion Song, before overenthusiastically shouting and screeching the last lines – something that I felt had a detrimental effect on what had been a beautiful singing voice for the rest of the gig.

Throughout the gig Kate stayed fairly quiet, apart from uttering a few thank you’s after songs, which seemed to contradict the delivery of her message of girls needing to be confident in themselves and in their talents. In the silence the crowd chanted “Birds” over and over in a bid to get her to play the song, to which she replied “No!”

The mood became much more upbeat with the start of Mariella, leading to her number one hit Foundations and Merry Happy. She thanked the crowd again before leaving the stage, only to return for an encore of crowd favourite Birds and Pumpkin Soup. This time Kate thanked the crowd with much more aplomb and handed out a large number of booklets detailing her After School Rock N Roll Club for Girls project.

I personally hope young girls do sit up, listen and take action to follow in Kate Nash’s footsteps, as she is a perfect example of how you can let you talent and individuality become more than just a hobby.

• See also: Kate Nash: Do Wah Doo

It’s unfortunately impossible to go anywhere on the internet without hearing about this 3 minute 48 second pile of anal oozings,  but here is, as a warning, the full thing elaborated in full.

It starts terribly enough, standard poppy electronic noise with somebody running a vocal scale over the top. The singing then comes in with the sound HAL would make if he decided a pop career was better than homicide, auto-tuned so much it becomes impossible to tell where singing ends and synth begins.

The lyrics manage, if this was actually possible, to make the works of undisputed king Sod-Hat Justin Bieber look like fine treatises on the human condition, with such lines as “Tomorrow is Saturday/And Sunday comes after…wards” farting themselves into your brain with all the grace and humanity of a killer donkey walking across a desert of jelly and hot tar.

Next up, the video. Winning the award for the most singularly vapid offering in the entire history of music, it depicts the colossal waste of flesh Rebecca Black singing at you for almost the entire thing, her eyes full of malevolent glee as you genuinely consider filling your bed with petroleum and chain smoking yourself into oblivion.

Oh, and there is a rap. Which is also shit.

There are countless reviews of this song all around the place, and I know one more isn’t going to make any difference. Idiots are still going to buy this thing, but that doesn’t matter. This is the worst thing ever made, comparing it to music is like comparing a delicious treacle tart to having your own laxative fueled bowels emptied in your eyes, and the whole bastard thing deserves the Ol’ Yella treatment: Being taken out back behind the shed and taking both barrels right to the face.

Orange Box, Yeovil

Support: Shadows Chasing Ghosts, The Valiant, Undertryyke

You know you were suitably impressed or psychotically obsessed when you make the effort to travel to see a band twice on the same tour. I consider myself to be the former, hence traveling further out of my usual music catchment area to get a second helping of Glamour of the Kill.

Though tickets were still available on the door that night, the audience began to swell around the stage to be warmed up by the supports.

First up were Undertryyke, a Yeovil prog metal four-piece. As was echoed later by The Valiant’s lead singer, despite the unusual twists and turns brought about by their use of keyboard and electric guitar, you couldn’t help but be a tad unsettled by Undertryyke singer Larz’s boyish looks contradicting his death metal growls. Nevertheless, they were greatly received and got the first moshers on the scene – usually a good sign for the first support band, but more about them later.

Next came Southampton’s The Valiant, who seemingly couldn’t believe the reception they were receiving. More polished than Undertryyke, they set more headsbanging and further moshers indulged in a wall of death.

Shadowings Chasing Ghosts – Glamour of the Kill’s “tour brothers” – gave yet another energetic and enthusiastic performance, yet their set and stage banter didn’t appear to vary much compared to the Southampton performance I attended earlier this month.

Finally Glamour of the Kill made their entrance, hair immaculately groomed (well, maybe not Jack Daniels fueled guitarist Mike Kingswood, who spent the majority of the set fighting a losing battle with his mane) and pumped for action. Immediately the aforementioned moshers began to pace out the biggest, most unnecessary circle pit for a venue of Orange Box’s size, continuing to march in a circle like bulls on acid.

As Glamour of the Kill kicked off with Supremacy, so did the moshers, beginning in the usual manner, then going on to flail their legs and arms like something out of Street Fighter. For those further back, they could only have proved to be an unwelcome distraction from what otherwise would have been a well executed first few tracks for the band.

Idiots aside, Glamour of the Kill continued to plough through their setlist, which I assume was the same  for each venue in comparing the performances in both Southampton and Yeovil. Yeovil’s crowd appeared much more passionate in singing along to every line, and despite the sound quality being a little poor, it was clearly music to their ears.

Once again the set seemed somewhat short with GOTK taking to the stage some time after 10.20pm, but it certainly was a case of quality versus quantity, with quality effortlessly coming out on top.

On both occasions though, I can’t help but feel GOTK would have done well out of exploiting their cover of Iron Maiden’s 2 Minutes To Midnight as recorded for Kerrang!’s Maiden Heaven tribute album. It’s not often a cover sets a standard almost equivalent to the original, but that said to be able to hold your own on a 29 date tour with all your own material shows Glamour of the Kill don’t need to rely on the success of others to pave their way to the top.

If you haven’t already been to one of the tour dates, I suggest you get in on the action.

• See also: Glamour of the Kill Southampton review