The Brummy band take their inspiration from an eclectic mixture of bands, including Talking Heads, The Fall, The Maccabees and Late of the Pier, sending dancefloors pulsing with excitement and energy. 

They made a huge impact on The Charleton’s Drummer Jon Brookes earlier this year who snapped them up and signed them to One Beat Records. Brookes said of what makes them stand out; “They’ve got a kind of quirky sound mixed with a dubstep influence coming from the synth and then these amazing baritone melodies.”

The Carpels are among a whole host of bands from the Birmingham scene that are hot right now, with Peace, Troumaca and Swim Deep already reaching national fame and putting the city’s music scene on the map. NME pinpointed The Carpels as one of the top three bands to watch on the scene at the moment. The band have also appeared on BBC Introducing, playing their first live session, were enthused about by BBC6 Music presenter Mark Radcliffe, and have been played by Radio 1′s Rob da Bank who referred to them as “incredible”.

To celebrate Birmingham’s flourishing scene, One Beat records are launching One Beat Sunday, a one day music festival on 22nd July at the MAC outdoor arena in Birmingham, where you can catch The Carpels and plenty more unmissable Midland’s bands.

You can watch the video for The Carpels’ ‘Sand’ below and you can find out more about them at their website, their Facebook page and their Twitter.

The band have also released a ‘Jackass’ style video to accompany to the track, which is worth checking out below. They will also be playing a string of festival shows across the UK later this summer:

Jun 2nd Dot To Dot Festival, Bristol, UK
Jun 3rd Dot To Dot Festival, Nottingham, UK
Jun 4th Dot To Dot Festival, Manchester, UK
Jun 8th Rough Beats Festival, Yorkshire, UK
Jun 24th Isle of Wight Festival, Newport, Isle of Wight, UK
Jul 6th In The Park, Kinross, Scotland, UK
Jul 13th 2000 Trees Festival, Cheltenham, UK
Aug 24th Leeds Festival, Leeds, UK
Aug 26th Reading Festival, Reading, UK

It appears that a certain brand of punky garage rock is beginning to enjoy a bit of a resurgence at the moment and the epicentre of this movement seems to be in Brooklyn. The amount of acts coming out of Brooklyn at the moment is insane and the ones that are employing this garage style are the ones that are really catching my eye, or should that be ear?

Devin is one such example of these Brooklyn acts. At only 23 years of age the future is certainly looking bright for him as he has been championed by the likes of the NME, The Guardian and Artrocker amongst others. ‘Masochist’, which was released yesterday, is the final teaser before his debut album Romancing is released on April 30th. From the off you’re hit with a wall of raw guitars before a scuzzy bass is teamed with a solid drum beat, leading in to an infectious and raucous chorus. He has a raw quality to his vocals that are reminiscent of the likes of Jack White or Julian Casablancas and, if the rest of Romancing can stand up to this then it should be a pretty interesting listen.

The band will also be playing a couple of UK gigs to support the new album. Their show at London’s Village Underground sold out within hours but you can still catch them at the Green Man Festival in August.

Tuesday 12th June – LONDON – Village Underground * Sold-Out *

Sunday 19th August – POWYS – Green Man Festival

It’s a great track with a strong piano line and Tom Chaplin’s soaring vocals and it’s sure to take its place alongside Keane’s greatest hits. The band are also heading out on tour across the UK and you can catch them at the following dates:

May 2012
Wednesday 23, Newcastle O2 Academy
Thursday 24, Glasgow O2 Academy
Friday 25, Birmingham O2 Academy
Tuesday 29, Leeds O2 Academy
Wednesday 30 Manchester O2 Apollo
June 2012
Monday 04, Folkestone Leas Cliff Hall
Tuesday 05, Bristol O2 Academy
Wednesday 06 Leicester De Montfort Hall
Friday 08, London O2 Brixton Academy
Saturday 09 London O2 Brixton Academy

The band will be playing a sole UK gig towards the end of May during a string of European tour dates. You can see the complete list of dates below and you can also stream the single.

04.05 Leipzig (DE), Früh Auf!
05.05. Berlin (DE), HAU
15.05. Dortmund (DE), FZW
16.05. Paris (FR), Le Petit Bain
18.05. Macon (FR), La Cave A Musique
19.05. Mannheim (DE), Maifeld Derby
20.05. Munich (DE), Feierwerk
21.05. Vienna (AT), Chelsea
23.05. Rome (IT), Circolo Degli Artisti
24.05. Vittorio Veneto (IT), Bianconiglio
25.05. St. Gallen (CH), Palace
26.05. Kleinreifling (AT), Seewiesenfest
27.05. Frankfurt (DE), Zoom
28.05. Lille (FR), La Péniche
29.05. London (UK), Cargo
31.05. Hamburg (DE), Kampnagel
01.06. Amsterdam (NL), Paradiso
02.06. Brussels (BE), Botanique

Front man Paul Smith had this to say about the album…

“We’re in a global recession and everyone is being bombarded with bouncy, happy music. The nation is out of control and the record is about taking back control, and being a force for change in your own life. It can’t speak for everybody but it has its eyes and ears all around us…that’s always been a Maximo Park thing: look at yourself. See how you relate to yourself and hopefully someone else will have something in common with it. Our songs are built on empathy. I would hope it’s as vital a music as people would want to hear.”

You can listen to the title track from the album below:

The full track listing for the album is below:

1. When I Was Wild
2. The National Health
3. Hips and Lips
4. The Undercurrents
5. Write This Down
6. Reluctant Love
7. Until the Earth Would Open
8. Banlieue
9. This Is What Becomes of the Broken Hearted
10. Wolf Among Men
11. Take Me Home
12. Unfamiliar Places
13. Waves of Fear

Teenage Blood is being released through Moshi Moshi and the band have joined forces with the Pledge music campaign in order to keep their fans uniquely connected to the album’s released. You can find out more about their campaign here.

1. Ég anda.
2. Ekki múkk.
3. Varúð.
4. Rembihnútur.
5. Dauðalogn.
6. Varðeldur.
7. Valtari.
8. Fjögur píanó.

You can listen to the second track from the album, ‘Ekki múkk’, below. It’s another gem of a track from the Icelanders; a slow burner laden with piano and swirling strings and Jonsi’s haunting voice. While I don’t claim to be fanatical about the band, when they get it right, they are capable of stirring things inside me that few others are and, for that, I will always have time for them.

Sigur Rós – Ekki múkk from Sigur Rós on Vimeo.

Between the 26th January and the 11th February, The Tricks went on tour. Our first tour. Ever.

We packed the equipment into our VW Transporter, a van which John got a couple of years ago and has been incredibly helpful for a few reasons- we don’t have to get to gigs using multiple cars (so multiple sober Tricks) or taxis (expensive) or hire a van (again, expensive) or the tube (have you ever tried lugging around an Ampeg bass amp on a busy Northern line?). Then with our mate Nick in tow (camera man, driver, mediator), we hit the road.

The first night was in Cardiff in a venue called The Globe which was plonked in the middle of a high street and surrounded by convenience stores and takeaways, one of which was called Hungry Harveys. On arrival we found out the venue was owned by Mr Miyagi (or a convincing look-a-like) and we were greeted with a bread, meat and ham platter reminiscent of Spinal Tap.

The gig broke us in… in more ways than one. We had been up until this point playing almost exclusively in London and had got used to size of the fanbase we could attract. Now we were in fucking Wales and didn’t really have any idea how many people would turn up. But it was a great gig! We had a few dancers in the crowd and the applause grew louder throughout the set which is always a sure sign that you’re winning people over. There were some set-list issues to iron-out but apart from that it was a solid start.

The fun really began after the gig; we had first experience with Travelodge, or as I like to call it Travel Hodge. We went to Cardiff Central Travelodge and after smashing through the rather modest rider at the gig we were in need of further lubrication, so hit the hotel bar. We drank until closing time and expected to be turfed out then. However, the bar staff allowed us to stay in the bar, drink our own booze and smoke in there till very early in the morning which was amazing! So, big up the staff at Cardiff Travel Hodge. If you still have your jobs that is…

I feel like a Travelodge connoisseur after just one tour. I was confused by the varying quality of Travelodges- do they operate the same star system as normal hotels? Let’s imagine they do… here are my recommendations…

Newcastle Central Travelodge is relatively luxury (a 5 star Travelodge). It has a big bar and seating area reminiscent of a Wetherspoons (but not a Wetherspoons). Our room had a larger en- suite than I had become accustomed to and the TV was a flat screen, as opposed to the old box-type I had come to expect. My only criticism would be the breakfast; expensive and shit… avoid.

The Sheffield Central Travelodge was pretty good; not quite to the high standard of Newcastle but coming in a close second (4 stars) and Cardiff Central I would say matched that too (if only for the accommodating staff). York Central Travelodge has an actual Wetherspoons connected to it so it’s great for skint alcoholics whom seemed to be the prominent clientele. 3 Stars.

The Travelodge we stayed in after our Stratford- Upon- Avon show was alright; it was on a roundabout, extremely non- descript, however, it has a Little Chef next to it and everyone likes an Olympic Breakfast and a pot of Yorkshire tea- for that reason alone this Travelodge gets a 2 star rating.

The wooden spoon goes to the Travelodge in Carcroft, South Yorkshire that we stayed in after our (really brilliant) gig in Doncaster. It’s seriously bleak… From the outside it looks like a prison… It has fucking bars on the windows… I heard screaming at night… The last ones not true (the others are). This gets a solitary star only because there is a Little Chef- but even that had vultures flying round it.

Anyway, that’s enough on Travelodges… back to the gigs. Among the tour dates there were three O2 Academy 2 gigs, the first of which was in Oxford. We have played predominantly small, sweaty club gigs since we started The Tricks, with larger venues thrown in here and there when we’ve had the opportunity to support larger, more established bands. So to play the Academys was pretty special. The Oxford show holds a particular fondness in my memory because it was such a big room, big stage and busy crowd. We also played really fucking well that night; as it was the fourth gig into the tour, we had by this point refined our set, the songs were working in that order, flowing into one another, each of us individually were playing dynamically, my voice was growing stronger and the onstage banter and performance aspect was becoming natural and spontaneous.

Brudenell Social Club was another great experience. I love reading about bands, their histories and watching them move from small venues to larger places. Brudenell is one of those great touring venues for bands when they’re starting to get somewhere. I remember The Cribs playing a three night residency there in 2007 with support from, among others, Franz Ferdinand- it just has that feeling of intimacy and lack of corporate intervention that seems to have been lost to most venues. The furniture is authentic 70’s tackiness, the carpet is velvet red and sticky and the pool room next door to the gig room is a great place to pass the time between soundcheck and your gig (which is the most boring part of being in a band- waiting to go on). A bunch of mates turned up to the show too which only serves to make it more fun and we went out and blasted a shorter punkier set than we’d been playing up until then on tour. The people of Leeds should be proud to have this venue and I can’t wait to go back there.

Of course, not every gig can be amazing and we had a bit of a funny one in Stratford- Upon- Avon. The venue was beautiful, Cox’s Yard, but wasn’t really in keeping with a young indie rock band. It was all a bit… civilised. When we played the crowd, as opposed, to coming to the front, hugged the bar, the back wall and the left hand wall of the room in a very school disco- esque fashion. The response was warm but far from rapturous. The benefit of being on tour though is that if you have a night like this you can quickly dispel it from memory by playing a corker the following night. Luckily we had Oxford O2 the next night so we didn’t have time to dwell on it.

The final night of the tour was in London which is where we are based as a band and as we expected shit loads of friends and family turned up. The gig was at Leicester Square Theatre which is the most gorgeous room I’ve ever entered and the sound onstage was utterly perfect. We played our set, which by this point, we had down to a tee, and everyone loved it.

I felt a certain relief after we had finished our set that it was over. We had got through the tour without any punch-ups or breakdowns (either personal or vehicular) and had survived the Travelodges and petrol station sandwiches. You hear lots of bands complain about the stress and exhaustion they suffer from touring. Obviously, this was our first tour and was only two weeks long but I hope it’s a long time till I get sick of touring. Sure, you get tired; getting pissed every night, travelling all day then throwing yourself into a live performance will do that… but fucking hell… what a life.

You can find out more about The Tricks from these places:

Official Site: http://bit.ly/TheTricks
Facebook: http://on.fb.me/TheTricksFacebook
Twitter: http://bit.ly/TheTricksTwitter

And you can see the video for their track ‘Remember Me’ below.

From the opening drums and the epic guitar line that runs throughout the entirety of ‘Chapel Song’, Rise Ye Sunken Ship‘s first track, it’s clear that we are in for something special. Born out of tragedy, the album documents the grief and search for comfort and understanding that singer Billy McCarthy felt before and after the suicide of his brother James, who had been suffering with mental illness. The lyrics are bleak and at times uncomfortable, but they are set to such wonderful, soaring and uplifting music that the whole album shines through as a hopeful and redemptive affair.

It should be noted that the majority of songs on the album were written while James was still alive, documenting his struggles and the effects that they had on a family that had already suffered the loss of their mother through a mixture of sleeping pills and cocaine. Songs like ‘Augustine’, from which the band take their name, show the love and faith shown by one brother to another as he sings ‘Keep your head up kid, I know you can swim but you gotta move your legs’. A lot of lyrics like this one take on an extra poignancy when you know that James sadly lost his struggle. On the next track, ‘Headlong In To The Abyss’, McCarthy recalls trying to help his brother single handedly as he cries out ‘Call the police, call your shrink, call whoever you want but I won’t stop the car’ and declares that ‘I ain’t gonna wait around for some pill to kick in’. Throughout the track his strained and cracking vocals are truly heartbreaking.

That’s the remarkable thing about Rise Ye Sunken Ships. It’s one of the only albums I’ve heard that you could truly say was genuinely heartbreaking and it’s all set to raw guitars and drums and throbbing bass lines that have been cobbled together and swept up in horns and brass to create euphoric, driving melodies. It really is a perfect mix of music and lyrics. On gentler songs such as ‘East Los Angeles’ and ‘Barrel of Leaves’ the stripped back use of acoustic guitars and piano create tender and fragile tracks that show off a different kind of vulnerability to McCarthy’s voice through their emotive vocal melodies. It’s left to ‘The Book of James’, one of the album’s highlights, to pick up after the suicide of James and it’s almost a love letter to a lost brother where McCarthy tells him that he loves him and that he’s forgiven.

Rise Ye Sunken Ships is a harrowing and bleak portrayal of a life plagued by mental struggles and anguish and yet it stands triumphant, offering some catharsis and hope for the future. Ultimately it exists as the validation of a life taken too early and an eternal tribute to a lost loved one. Even if We Are Augustines never put pen to paper to write another song again they could feel proud of what they have achieved here.

Singer, Lucas Whitworth had this to say about the track:

“It’s a reaction to that feeling of impotence when confronted with a difficult choice. So many of our friends, family and people we meet are stuck in this terrible position – we keep being told that we’re lucky to have a job, as unemployment soars, but we still need an outlet to escape the monotony, to stop our lives from stagnating and becoming grey. So we sing, or we go to gigs, or we do whatever we need to just to feel engaged…”

The band are heading out on tour on the following UK dates before heading out for a few dates in Europe, which are also listed below:

29.03 Electricity Showrooms, London
30.03 The Green Door Store, Brighton
31.03 Secret Location, Oxford
01.04 The Castle Hotel, Manchester
02.04 SOYO, Sheffield
03.04 The Head of Steam, Newcastle
04.04 The Shipping Forecast, Liverpool
05.04 Gwdihw, Cardiff
09.04 Musikbunker Aachen
10.04 Schon Schön, Mainz
11.04 MUZ, Nurnberg
12.04 Häll, Heidelberg
13.04 Parterre, Basel