Riffed

Kasabian this week released their fitfth album '48:13' and in our review we gave it a 9/10, and it's no surprise as to why, with huge tracks such as 'Ee-zeh', 'Bumblebee', 'Bow' and many more, but the highlight being, for this week alone, 'Stevie'.

Stevie is one heck of a tune from Kasabian. One that really defines the whole album. There's an upbeat tune that is constant throughout, matched by that rawness Kasabian have. Stevie is really a hybrid of their old material and new material, and it works perfectly. 'And all the kids they say, live to fight another day' is that catchy chrous that when you hear, you will instantly recognise. A chrous you can't help but shout out at the top of your voice. 

Stevie is a perfectly mastered tune and the highlight of an album that is full of highlights.

RIFFED's Rating: 9/10

If you haven't yet purchased '48:13', buy it here: http://www.kasabian.co.uk/announcing-new-album-4813/

And read our review: http://riffed.webs.com/apps/blog/show/42358750-kasabian-48-13-review

RIFFED x

The Palace Wolves, all the way from Atlanta chatted to us recently. The Americans are a very powerful alternative band, with plenty of vibrancy and we expect there to be a bright future awaiting them. This is what they had to say us:

1) Who are The Palace Wolves?

The Palace Wolves are a Shoegazey influenced, synth-rocksplosion! ...ehh but in real terms, we are Shannon Small (keys, vocals, lead guitar), Ryan Pace (lead vocals, guitars) Matt Katis (keys), Ryan Pincott (drums), and Daryl Weber (bass). I Shannon Small and Ryan Pace formed the Palace Wolves late in 2011, eventually adding the super talented people we're lucky to play with now.

2) Best gig you've played so far?

Best gig so far...I'd say a small bar at what is known in Atlanta as The East Atlanta Village. The spot is called 529. It was St. Patricks, and everybody was moving together. In the end, that's all we want to do, to reach the crowd, have everybody forget whatever bullshit they left at the front door, and move with us.

3) What can we expect from The Palace Wolves in the future?

Right now we are preparing to go into the studio and record our first full length record. It will be a more organic experience I think, but we've stayed pretty close to our electronic roots. We're super excited for everyone to hear this stuff, most of the tracks are brand new to our outside Atlanta audience. That said, old favs like "lights that fade" and "three am" are getting a facelift and going on the new record.

4) Where do you see yourselves in 5 years?

In 5 years....could be anywhere. We have a plan for the future but we live in the now. I'd hope we get the chance to go overseas and tour. We've got some bucket list items like playing in Japan and the UK. I don't know, 5 years is a pretty long time, anything will happen;)

5) Who's on your playlist?

There are five of us, but I've narrowed down our top ten playlist: 

Bombay Bicycle club

Local Natives

The Stone Roses

The Cure

Weezer

The National

Ride

My Bloody Vanentine

Oasis

Phantogram

Big thanks to Shannon from The Palace Wolves for the interview.

Like The Palace Wolves on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Palace-Wolves/413761098685991

Or follow them on Twitter: @ThePalaceWolves

Visit The Palace Wolves' webpage: www.thepalacewolves.com

Listen to The Palace Wolves:

Soundcloud - https://soundcloud.com/the-palace-wolves

Bandcamp - http://thepalacewolves.bandcamp.com/

RIFFED x

We caught up with Bolton band Cuban Hexe, they've recently released their new EP 'Missile Crisis' that we advise you give a listen. Here's how our interview went down:

1) Who are Cuban Hexe?

Cuban Hexe are Alex, Lewis, Rob & Joey. Four teenagers from Bolton intent on creating art in the form of loud music.

2) You've recently released your debut EP 'Missile Crisis', tell us a little about that?

Missile Crisis is the culmination of our work over the first few months of the band. It’s essentially the four of us doing what we want and it just so happens to sound quite nice. It's gritty, it's loud and rumour has it it can cure the common cold. Check it out. Please?

3) Favourite gig of which you've played?

We’re yet to play live, but expect to see us on a stage near you in the near future. We’re going to be doing whatever we can over summer.

4) Biggest inspirations for Cuban Hexe?

We're a band predominantly influenced by blues and garage rock. Our guitar riffs hopefully reflect the likes of Zeppelin and Jack White. But ultimately our influences stretch past any single genre, from Gnarls Barkley to Turbowolf, Elvis Presley to Radkey.

5) Where do you see yourselves in 5 years?

Realistically we see ourselves leading a new world order. Five years is more than enough time to inspire a generation.

6) What can we expect from Cuban Hexe next?

Aside from world domination, we have plenty of new song ideas brewing so expect some new songs sometime this summer. We obviously intend to make our live debut as soon as possible so we’re looking forward to that.

Cheers Cuban Hexe for the interview.

Like Cuban Hexe on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cubanhexe

Or follow them on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CubanHexe

Listen to Cuban Hexe and their new EP 'Missile Crisis' here :

Soundcloud - https://soundcloud.com/cubanhexe

Band Camp - http://cubanhexe.bandcamp.com

Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUu50Ww_bjExiCEQAXe4dmA

RIFFED x

We chatted with Cameron of Bolton band Sittin Pretty this week. This is what he had to say to us:

1) Who are Sittin Pretty?

We're a 5 piece from Bolton. We being Conor, Lewis, Cameron, George, and Jack (Soon to be Sayon, Jacks leaving).

2) Favourite gig of which you've played?

Personally, my favourite gig was the last gig we did at Blind Tiger in Bolton, not our biggest gig but our last with Jack on drums. Everyone killed it, the crowd were amazing and its was a real good send off for Jack. We've done a few other cool gigs in Manchester, Castle Hotel was a great gig we did for promo for a live video series we were involved in with the guys at GASst. The bands that night were unreal.

3) Where do you see yourselves in 5 years time?

In five years time? Hopefully still gigging and recording music, just with a bit of luck it'll be to a few more people.

4) Who are your biggest inspirations?

As a band we get a lot of inspiration from old blues bands, bands like Hendrix, Clapton, Peter Green and newer acts like Jack White and some of the older Black Keys stuff. How much influence that has musically for us I'm not too sure.

5) What can we expect from Sittin Pretty in the future?

For the summer we're pretty quiet, just writing as much new music as possible and we'll be back to gigging at the end of August. Over the next year we'll hopefully have a new EP and be doing as many gigs as we can convince people to give us.

Huge thanks to Cameron for the interview. We are huge fans of the Bolton lads and we strongly advise you check them out.

Follow Sittin Pretty on Twitter : @SittinPretty6

Like Sittin Pretty on Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/SittinPrettyMusic?ref=ts&fref=ts

Listen to Sittin Pretty via Soundcloud : https://soundcloud.com/sittinprettymusic

RIFFED x

We spoke to Devon band Brookyln this week. The lads recently released new single 'Ashleigh',  which possesses a similar sound and style to that of The 1975 and this band have certainly got a bright future ahead of them. Due to this we caught up with Brooklyn and grabbed an interview:

1) Who are Brooklyn?

Jack on drums, Alex on bass and Josh plays guitar and sings

2) You recently released new single 'Ashleigh', tell us a little about that?

Yeah so I mean the whole song came about listening to Prince's 'I Would Die 4 U' and we really got inspired on that whole album. Around late 2013, Josh was writing a lot of very personal lyrics, scribbles and drafts, that he never really thought to use, but always kept titled under highlighted events and so this was a pretty perfect fit to use its types of lyrics for the song, Josh fell in love with the idea of a happy pop song with the twist of quiet sad story behind it. thats what we tried to in vision in our music video, It's your basic love triangle, but it's however you interpret it, we don't want to take that away from anybody, it's yours.

3) Favourite gig of which you've played?

None as of yet but thats about to change.

4) Where do you see yourselves in 5 years time?

I think playing Glasto, or is that pushing it, ha.

5) What's next for Brooklyn?

We're releasing another song for free named 'Car' on Monday 16th, we hope this song won't make people blueprint who they think we are, and late summer releasing our EP but can't give anything away as of yet.

Big thanks to Brooklyn for the interview.

Like Brooklyn on Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/bklynuk

Or follow them on Twitter : @Bklynuk

Listen to Brooklyn via Soundcloud : https://soundcloud.com/officialbklyn

RIFFED x

England this week begin their World Cup campaign against Italy on Saturday, but when former Smiths frontman Morrissey came to visit, they were faced with their first challenge, before a ball had even been kicked. 

This challenge being figuring out who he actually was. Shocking we know. Only Leighton Baines and Gary Neville revealed they knew who Morrissey was. Baines though is not a surprise, a good mate of Miles Kane and due to this, the left back is undoubtedly England's greatest player. But we certainly hope that England don't perform as poor as their music taste in Brazil this summer.

RIFFED x

We spoke to Eoin of Sheffield duo Drenge this week. Drenge are a band continously on the rise, they were on Later... With Jools Holland last year, they then released their debut album which went down a storm and they have a busy summer of festivals ahead of them, will their rise up the music industry's ladder ever end? We certainly hope not. This is what Eoin had to say:

1 Who are Drenge?

We’re two brothers from a mildly popular tourist village in the Peak District. We started playing music when I took a year off of education and couldn’t find any work and got really down on life.

2 You released your debut album last year, tell us a little about that?

It’s a rock album of all our earliest songs, sequenced chronologically, in the order we recorded them. The sessions span around 18 months, so as the album goes on you can hear us progress musically.

3 You've just finished a tour, how did that go?

Yeah we had a 4 date ‘tour’ last week. I basically refuse to accept that anything under two weeks is a tour, but yeah, it was fun. It’s nice to play places that don’t have a lot of live music coming through, because there’s a strong music loving community in those towns. Everyone cakes to see the opening acts, which is really rare in the bigger towns.

4 You are from Sheffield, like the Arctic Monkeys, do you reckon you can top them?

No. They’re the biggest band on the planet right now. What would be the point?

5 Plans for the future?

Festivals, tour, album, tour, festivals, tour...

Big thanks to Eoin for the interview. 

Like Drenge on Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/drengeboys

And

Follow them on Twitter : @drenge

Purchase their debut album 'Drenge' via iTunes here : https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/drenge/id662118125

RIFFED x

Jack White has followed up the release of new album 'Lazaretto' with a tour. The tour consists of three UK dates :

17 Leeds, First Direct Arena

18 Glasgow, SSE Hydro

19 London, O2 Arena

Tickets for these dates will go on sale Friday 13th June at 9 am GMT. We assume many fans will be setting their alarms to purchase these before they sell out, which they will, and fast. Jack White is also playing at Glastonbury later this month, which we anticpate to be a spectacle. 

Purchase tickets via : http://www.stereoboard.com/jack-white-tickets?utm_source=bing

RIFFED x

Kasabian this week released their fifth album '48:13' and it is already being dubbed album of the year.

'48:13' has proppelled Kasabian back into the spotlight and with the Pyramid at Glastonbury awaiting, could this be Kasabian's best year yet? Earlier this week we reviewed the new album and we'll post the link at the end of this post incase you haven't yet checked it out, we awarded '48:13' a 9/10 on the first listen, but after a few more plays we'd probably nudge that up to a 10 now. It is that good. There is not one bad track on the album, but is it too soon to be dubbing it album of the year? Who knows what could appear later this year, but as we are halfway through 2014, let's for now call it the album of the first half of the year. If you haven't yet purchased '48:13' we strongly advise you pop into your local music retailer and purchase a copy or download it via iTunes. We love it.

Our review of '48:13' : http://riffed.webs.com/apps/blog/show/42358750-kasabian-48-13-review

Purchase here : http://www.kasabian.co.uk/announcing-new-album-4813/

RIFFED x

This week we chatted to Halifax artist Oliver Pinder, the singer/songwriter is aiming to become Yorkshire's very own Jake Bugg. He's certainly going the right way about it. This is how it went down:

1) Who is Oliver Pinder?

Oliver Pinder is a singer/songwriter based in Halifax (where the bank originates from) near Leeds. I play what some may describe as upbeat acoustic music with a little bit of piano thrown in there. I’m gigging up and down the UK and loving life.

2) Favourite gig of which you've played?

My favourite gig would have to be a gig I played for a competition at Belgrave Music Hall in Leeds, it was flipping awesome and I can not wait to return this Friday supporting the fantastic King No-One.

3) Where do you see yourself in 5 years time?

I would say that seen as though five years is a long time away I could probably see myself touring either supporting or headlining and still hopefully gigging my music.

4) What can we expect in the future from you?

I am planning on releasing an EP and gigging it soon so that and lots of gigs.

 5) Who are your biggest inspirations?

The musicians that started me off would have to be Orla Gartland (mainly), Ed Sheeran and Passenger, to this day I still listen to them three acts where as I now also listen to a lot of unsigned acts like Jasmine Kennedy, Jacobean Ruff, King No-One, Luke Sital-Singh, Bipolar Sunshine and others.

Cheers to Oliver for the interview.

Like Oliver on Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/OliverPinderOff

Or follow him on Twitter : @oliverpinder

Visit Oliver's webpage : http://www.oliverpinder.co.uk/

Listen to Oliver via Soundcloud : https://soundcloud.com/oliverpinderoff

RIFFED x