Album Of The Year pt.2

So it's 10 days until we reveal who won our Album Of The Year.
But today we take our (very) long list and reduce it to a short list of 10 who could win the award, here we go:

Positive Songs For Negative People // Frank Turner

This his 6th studio album, Frank has again surpassed himself on this one. A Fantastic albu that just grows on you and takes so many emotional highs and lows it's impossible to ignore!
Our full review from the release here

The Mindsweep // Enter Shikari

Enter Shikari never dissapoint but this album is just fantastic. Simultaneously getting heavier and more electronic whith very political lyrics, it ticks every box. We love it!

Are You Satisfied? // Slaves

Again another incredible album. Slaves debut album has taken 2015 by storm and helped punk rock rear its ugly head in the public eye once again. With 3 fantastic performances on Radio 1 live lounge to get under their bel as well, it's been a fantastic year for the kent duo.

Favourite Worry // The Milk

A very different album to that of Slaves and Enter Shikari. Soulful. Smooth. Catchy. A brilliant album nonetheless, following on from a frantic first album this is an incredible addition to the discography and I can't wait to see what the band do next. A brilliant album also one of BBC 6 Musics albums of the year, worthy of winning any award.
Read our full review here.

Key Markets // Sleaford Mods

A truly divisive album this one, raw and political it doesnt tug at the heart strings. It just says what needs to be said and lyrically brilliant (if a bit explicit) in every song.

White Men Are Black Men Too // Young Fathers

I feel like we've covered an odd selection of genres in this list added to by the Scottish genre breaking tunes of Young Fathers. Having won the mercury prize in 2014 with a stunning debut, this has been a fantastic follow up. An inventive and interesting albu, with some fanastic songs.

What Went Down // Foals

Foals have taken 2015 by storm; an amazing secret set at Reading Festival and a killer new album. Topped to headline many festivals in 2016 this album might be what propels them from a good band to a great one.

My Love Is Cool // Wolf Alice

Another band who, like Slaves, have exploded into the public eye. They owned the summer busting out incredible festiival show after incredible festival show. Not only that their album is catchy and takes the world of indie in a slightl different direction - hopefully far far away from the direction bands like Years & Years are taking it.

Urth // Kagoule

Grungy and miserable is the tone of Kagoule's debut album and we love it. Reaching the top 10 in the vinyl charts this album has made its rounds this year amd there's a good reason why.

That's The Spirit // Bring Me The Horizon

Every album BMTH release they impress me more and more, adapting their style, making it reach a wider audience while still maintaining their original style. Being on before Metallica at Reading & Leeds is not something you'd expect from a band that started as a hardcore band. The new album has reached a wider audience and propelled them up to a much more prominent position amongst the metal elite.

Stereo Brain Best Of 2015 Awards

We've already told you about our album of the year shortlist. Time to announce who's up for our other awards.

Breakout Band Of 2015 Award:
So much choice here, but we've tried to narrow it down as much as possible... So up for this we have

• Wolf Alice
• Slaves
• Sleaford Mods
• Nothing But Thieves
• Pretty Vicious 
• Rat Boy
• Jack Garratt

Best Debut Album Of 2015 Award:

Again so much choice from so many different areas but here we go

• My Love Is Cool // Wolf Alice
• In Colour // Jamie XX
• Urth // Kagoule
• Communion // Years & Years
• Nothing But Thieves // Nothing But Thieves
• Are You Satisfied? // Slaves

Best Festival Performance Award:

After trawling through all the footage from Reading & Leeds, Glastonbury, Isle Of Wight etc... here's what we could find:

• Kanye West (Glastonbury)
• Florence + The Machine (Glastonbury )
• Chemical Brothers (Bestival)
• Bring Me The Horizon (Reading & Leeds)
• Jamie T (Glastonbury)
• Slaves (Reading & Leeds)
• Muse (Download)
• Wolf Alice (Reading & Leeds)
• Foals (Reading & Leeds)

Let us know your favourite!

Album Of The Year

Our 'short' list for Album Of The Year!

Before the 31st of December this going to be reduced slowly. Let us know who you think should win (or if we missed any) in the comments section below.

Support The Support Band

I read this fantastic article written by the people from a venue from where I live - The Wedgewood Rooms - on support bands.

Read it here: https://wedgewoodrooms.wordpress.com/2015/12/03/support-the-support-band-an-open-letter/

For me this is a very important subject as for every gig I go to I will turn up on time, if not early for doors simply to see the support acts. As I'm writing this I just got back from seeing Don Broco who had 3 support bands, not all of them were good, frankly one of them was verging on dull, but thats not the point. One of them was Arcane Roots, who I really enjoyed and some of the best bands I've seen this year have been supports like Baby Strange, Crows, Arcane Roots, Tiny Moving Parts, Wonk Unit and The London Souls to name but a few.
That's the joy of seeing the support, the article by the people from the wedge talks a lot about the benefit for the bands, but more than anything it's a benefit for the audience as well. A fantastic way of furthering your music collection, finding a new favourite band or seeing someone that, you never know, might make it huge in the near future.
If this doesn't convince you enough (which frankly it should) its getting value for money! I'm paying £20-something to see Enter Shikari early next year, and as much as I love them I want the most for my money so of course I'm going to turn up to see The King Blues and The Wonder Years (both of which are fantastic bands also), it's absurd that anyone could contemplate missing half a gig just because they haven't heard of a band!
So please, when you go to a gig, go early, see the support band. You might find a hidden gem and possibly help further a career in what is a very difficult and competitive industry

A Fantastic Gig and a Pet Hate

Having moved to Cardiff 3 months, I've spent a lot of that 3 months looking for where I'm going to get my fix for live music, and I think I've finally found it.
Since coming to Cardiff, Tuesday was my 3rd visit to Clwb Ifor Bach. Having already been treated to Nothing But Thieves at the start of November and Kagoule last week, I already knew what a fantastic gig venue it was. However on Tuesday I went to see The Wytches supportes by TRAAMS and Black Honey and it was honestly one of my favourite gigs of the year.
Black honey - first of all - were brilliant, a fantastic stage presence and something a bit different to start of the night. Having listened to a couple of their songs on youtube before heading to the gig I was suprised how loud they were. A lot of their studio work sounds a lot more chilled out than live because as a ive band they were angry, full of energy and very loud. Any chance you get to see this band I would definitely recommend it!
TRAAMS, compared to Black Honey seemed a bit uninteresting - monotonous post punk - however they were good fun and shouted there way through a killer set which gave the crowd some more energy (not that it was needed).
Then came The Wytches, and the excitement soon bubbled over into the break out of a mosh pit,  and now we come back to why I love this venue, with an atmosphere this electric for a lesser known band in a small intimate crowd it was an incredible gig. For me this is what live music means, not some The Vaccines on some arena tour (incidently in Cardiff the same night) but a small sweaty venue with 2 or 3 hundred people all really into a tiny band no one else has ever heard off, because that where music really comes alive.
This brings me to the point of this article really, yes the bands were fantastic and please listen to them it was an incrdible gig, but unfortunately the tone is a saddened one. It very much upsets me that people my age don't go to gigs (I'm a student) unless they know the band inside out, have friends to go with and it's in a big venue Some of the best, most incredible gigs I've been to (like this one), I've been to on my own in a tiny venue and not known the bands that well and unfortunately as less and less young people go to gigs, it doesnt just hurt the venues but it hurts the up and coming bands as well because how do you think they get famous? It's a dire situation we face that the future of music could be solely made up of X Factor winners and manufactured, 'safe' pop. The small bands are the ones pushing the boundaries, the ones that are different and more than aything what we want the future of music to be.

Dials Festival

New festival, new bands!

Having moved to Cardiff is a blessing and a curse. The positives is that I’m experiencing a whole new set of venues and scenes that I have never seen before, the downside it’s a long way to treck back down to the south coast to visit old favourites. Nonetheless this weekend I popped on the train for 2 and a half hours to see a festival which has become part of my yearly routine.

Southsea Festival, which I went to in 2012 and 2013 seeing artists like George Ezra, Drenge and Anamanaguchi before they were a lot bigger, is fantastic. Split across many venues in Southsea across Albert Road – the live music hub of the city – it’s always a fantastic opportunity to see new music; local, national and international. However this year the organisers have taken a year off, and hence Dials Festival was born. Run across 5 venues on Albert Road who wanted to keep the tradition of a street festival going it was a fantastic testament to a local community pulled together by music.

Having lived down the road from the festival site as a child and being brought up in those music venues it was very nice to feel at home after 2 weeks in an alien city and not only that the festival had an incredible line up, some I knew, some I’d never heard of before.

The day started in a little venue called the Edge of the Wedge, a little pub/music venue on the side of the much bigger Wedgewood Rooms, a well-known and popular independent venue in the local area. I wondered in not knowing what to expect from Bright Smoke and I was pleasantly surprised by what greeted me. A one woman band, sampling a cello and electric guitar live in a psychedelic style is a fantastic way to start your Saturday afternoon. She was quickly at 3 in the Wedgewood Rooms by the local Showcase event winners ­Dutch Criminal Records who brought a familiar indie rock style to unfortunately quite an empty room, however they played on and those who were in the room thoroughly enjoyed it.

The next band I saw were my band of the day for the second festival this summer, having seen them at Blissfields already this year I knew what to expect from MOK but once again they were fantastic, better even than when I saw them before. Not really fitting into a genre is MOKs speciality combining elements of Rap, Indie Rock, Electronic and occasionally heavier metal they are delight for any music fan. I still would definitely tip them for much greater things as they had everyone in the room bopping and listening attentively. I definitely cannot wait for any album they may release in the future as it will be on repeat for a long time.

Another stand out band of the day for me were FlashFires who I have also already seen this summer at Butserfest. Again, like MOK, they were even better than before, I think this is because both bands lend themselves to filling a room with their sound which they couldn’t do where I saw them both before. FlashFires played in a poky little pub called Little Johnny Russels just down the road from the Wedgewood Rooms, and it was fantastic, you could sit, have a pint and watch an exciting band in tiny venue.

Then came the top end of the bill, my favourite of which was Kagoule. Having released their fantastic new album Urth this summer it was fantastic to hear a fantastic album live. Kagoule are a part of a new emerging grunge and punk scene in the UK, headed by bands like Sleaford Mods, Fidlar and Slaves amongst others, the next year could be a breakout year for Kagoule amongst many others in this genre. Having seen them at Dials I have already booked tickets to see them up in Cardiff, can’t wait!

Roll on Dials/ Southsea festival next year, if it’s as good as this year, I can’t wait.

Favourite Worry

Tales from the Thames Delta, in my opinion, is one of the most complete albums ever made. It ticks so many boxes, blending parts of funk and soul with pop and indie in a brilliant cacophony of genre defying and catchy music, every song on the album, for me, could have been a hit. Not only that, the album held up live as well, I’d put The Milk up there with some of the best live acts I’ve ever seen.

So 3 years on, they’re faced with the task of following this up and despite my love for the first album, I and many others always felt that the album didn’t reflect the bands true demeanour. You always had the feeling that they were really a soul band, not a blend of everything, never more obvious in the first album than in ‘Lay The Pain On Me’ the only song on the album that wasn’t full pelt, you felt the band reigned it back and where true to their roots. So this is what I’ve been hoping for from the new album, I really have not been disappointed.

The pop hooks and indie style are still there in a lot of the songs on ‘Favourite Worry’ but they take a back seat and the driving force comes from the funk and soul deep routed in the band. But despite this the band have not lost the ability to right a catchy tune, I constantly find myself belting out a terrible rendition of ‘Don’t Give Up The Night’ in the shower, but not only that there a lot more ‘quiet’ songs on the album. You feel like The Milk have found a comfortable balance in the music they’ve produced in the album and are finally producing the music that is a lot more like what the band is about.

The result is a fantastic album and it will very quickly be one of my favourites: 8.5/10