Dave Green’s found footage filled directorial debut draws influence from the great 1980s blockbusters and maintains a similarity to Spielberg’s 2011 sci-fi-horror flick, Super 8. Set in Nevada the story revolves around three friends who, in the midst of trying to save their neighbourhood from being demolished due to highway construction, discover an alien in the desert.

The found footage perspective used for the majority of the film creates an engaging atmosphere that, for the most part, makes up for a storyline that could easily been looked at as a rehashed ET. Teo Halm, Reese Hartwig and Brian ‘Astro’ Bradley all deliver strong performances as Alex, Munch and Tucker respectively. While, Ella Wahlestedt introduces a new dynamic to the group as the seemingly fearless Emma.

The films truly enticing factor comes in the kids journey and determined enthusiasm to reach their goals, however, the eventual climax lacks in impact. Echo’s ship coming together and driving the alien home just doesn’t quite match up to ET and Elliot’s famous goodbye or The Goonies’ first discovering One-Eyed Willys ship.

Overall, the story does have a tendency to feel drawn out in places and ultimately the ending, while satisfying, is nothing too memorable. Despite it’s pitfalls, Earth to Echo still has enough charm to keep viewers interested and will undoubtedly be a very enjoyable watch for it’s young target audience.

Today marks a year since the release of Old Gray’s second full-length album Slow Burn. The trio, founded by Sorority Noise’s Cameron Boucher, have been creating raw sceamo tunes since 2011. The variety of influences cited by Boucher in interviews seep through in Old Gray’s sound: they’re not a band to be pigeonholed by genre. The brutally honest, and, painful lyricism combined with both Boucher’s fervent vocals and drummer, Charlie Singer’s, spine-tingling spoken-word laments make the release an extremely hard-hitting record.

Although Slow Burn clocks in at only 20 minutes, the outpour of loss, love and struggle displayed in the frantically short burst is guaranteed to send you through the wringer of emotional turmoil. Singer demonstrates his impactful spoken word ability’s in the heart-stopping ‘Like Blood From a Stone’ as he weaves a story of mental decline. In contrast, ‘Blunt Trauma’ and ‘Everything In Your Hands’ give Boucher the opportunity to deliver ferociously pain ridden vocals, that strike just as much of a blow as the lyrics he’s reciting.

The album feels like a blunt force trauma to the senses in the best possible way, it will leave you reeling but wanting to come back for more time and time again. Amidst the heavy subject matter, a clear underlining message of hope sits comfortably in the record, and, that is what makes these 20 minutes so cathartic. Slow Burn is emotionally difficult to listen through, yes, but it’s also an incredibly rewarding experience.

Taking place between June and August and circulating around North America, Warped Tour has become a salvation and place of belonging for both musicians and fans alike since it’s conception in 1995. Over the last 22 years it’s achieved the accolade of being the largest travelling music festival in the United States, and, the longest running touring festival in North America.

Although originally set out as an eclectic alternative rock festival, Lyman soon began booking more punk orientated acts, and over the next 20 years the festival would go on to host a large variety of bands from different genres, from pop artists Mike Posner and Katy Perry to metal-core bands including The Amity Affliction and Oceans Ate Alaska.

Many band’s that have gone on to sell out arena’s can place their roots back to Warped Tour, with pop-punk pioneers Blink-182 performing consecutive summers in the late nineties and and emo legends My Chemical Romance performing in both 2004 and 2005 during the touring cycle for their critically acclaimed album ‘Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge’. As well as more established acts, the tour has been well known to continuously support smaller artists. A big example of this being the ‘Battle of Bands’ founder Kevin Lyman co-founded with guitar company Ernie Ball Music in 2007. The scheme allowed any band in North America a chance to apply to play the festival. One of the successful competitors include Boston rockers PVRIS, who won the contest back in 2013 and went on to perform the entire tour. Since their stint on Warped, PVRIS have gone on to sign to Rise Records and are currently embarking on their biggest UK tour to date in support of their new album ‘All We Know Of Heaven, All We Need of Hell’.

As well as being a welcoming platform for upcoming bands, Warped has also done it’s fair share of charity work in hosting and helped spread awareness for various charities including: Hope For The Day, A Voice for the Innocent and Unite the United. An early entry wristband has also been available for a number of years in exchange for a canned goods donation to the Feed our Children charity.

Thrice - The Artist in the Ambulance

The success of Thrice’s third studio album ‘The Artist in the Ambulance’ propelled the band onto much bigger stages and tours than they had played prior to the album’s release. The album spawned a lot of first’s as it was Thrice’s first release on a major label (Island Records) and their first charting album, debuting at number 16 in the Billboard top 100. The album still stands incredibly strong 14 years later being created as ‘one of the most enduring albums of the 2000s post-hardcore movement’ and was listed by NME as one of the ’20 emo albums that have resolutely stood the test of time’.

Standout Songs - The Melting Point of Wax/Paper Tigers/Stare At The Sun

Senses Fail - Still Searching

Senses Fail’s second studio album Still Searching was released in October 2006 and sold over 200,000 copies in it’s first month. The album’s concept is based on the depression that vocalist Buddy Nielsen suffered from in the year’s before the album’s release. The lyrics in the album are written from the perspective of the character’s depression and anxiety. While the story weaved throughout the record is a work of fiction many of the subject matters were experienced by Nielsen first-hand. One song that is extremely evident of this is ‘Shark Attack’ that chronicles Nielsen’s experience with a psychologist who was proscribing him medication he didn’t need in order to send more business to his wife (a psychiatrist) so the pair could make double the money. 11 years later Still Searching still remains the band’s highest charting album to date.

Standout Songs - The Priest and the Matador/Can’t Be Saved/Shark Attack

Story Of The Year - Page Avenue

Story Of The Year burst onto the post-hardcore scene back in 2003 with their debut album Page Avenue. The album reached number 51 on the Billboard 100 and was one of the first port-hardcore records to be certificated gold by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) The success of the record led to the band headlining the 2004 Nintendo Fusion tour alongside My Chemical Romance and Anberlin - one of the band’s first major tours in North America. In 2013 Story Of The Year released a re-worked edition of the album in celebration of it’s ten year anniversary entitled ‘Page Avenue: Ten Years and Counting’.

Standout Songs - Razorblades/And The Hero Will Drown/Sidewalks

Armor For Sleep - What To Do When You Are Dead

Armor For Sleep were always one of the lesser known bands in the scene back in the day. The emo outfit managed to blend elements of dream-pop, alternative rock and pop-punk into their sound. What To Do When You Are Dead is their second studio album, a concept album that details the protagonist’s suicide and his eventual journey into the afterlife. Although the album just missed out on charting in the Billboard 100 (hitting the 101 mark) it did however, chart at number 1 in the Heatseekers album chart. By August 2006, (approximately a year a half after it’s initial release), it had sold over 165,000 copies in the US alone. Although Armor For Sleep disbanded in 2009 they did reunite in the summer of 2015 in celebration of What To Do When You Are Dead’s 10 year anniversary where they performed the album it’s in entirety. 

Standout Songs - The Truth About Heaven/Walking At Night, Alone/Car Underwater

The Used - In Love and Death

In Love and Death is The Used’s second studio album and was released in September 2004. It was certificated gold in the US after selling over 500,000 copies and is currently the band’s most commercially successful album to date. The album’s title and lyrics refer to a number of tragic events that surrounded vocalist Bert McCracken during the writing and recording process. In Love and Death sold over 93,000 copies in it’s first week and charted highly around the world, including number 6 on the Billboard 100. It was then certified gold in the US, Australia and Canada. In 2015 The Used announced a worldwide tour for their 15th anniversary as a band where they booked two shows in each city, performing both their self titled debut album and In Love and Death across both nights.  

Jamie Lenman and ‘Devolver’

Jamie Lenman is most well-known for fronting the alternative-rock trio Reuben who were active between 1998 - 2008. Over their ten year career they released three studio albums, their first, ’Racecar is Racecar Backwards’, spawning the highly charting single ‘Freddy Krueger’. They were also very favoured by Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe receiving a large amount of coverage including a two-hour special on XFM before they had even released their debut album.

After Rueben had disbanded Lenman concentrated on his illustration work but became encouraged to get back into writing and performing music after receiving numerous letters from Rueben fans who praised the band’s work. His debut solo album ‘Muscle Memory’ was released in 2013 via Xtra Mile Recordings. The album featured a whopping 23 tracks with Lenman stating the first half featured ‘extreme aggressive metal’ and the second was ‘all folk and jazz.’ After the years touring cycle had ended Lenman stated that he had ‘no long term plans to release new music’.

After a three year wait it was announced via Kerrang! Magazine on January 11th 2017 that Lenman would be releasing a brand new single entitled ‘Mississippi’, the song had it’s official premier the following Sunday on Daniel P Carter’s Radio 1 Rock Show.

‘Devolver’ was unleashed on October 27th and showcases the amount of versatility Lenman has in his songwriting. From the aggressive ‘Hell in a Fast Car’ to the ambient electronics of ‘Body Popping’ to the jazz and country infused instrumentals of ‘Comfort Animal’ there’s truly something for everyone on this album.

Julien Baker and ‘Turn Out The Lights’

At just 22 years old Julien Baker has accomplished a lot in the music industry over the last few years. The singer-songwriter/guitarist began her career as a member of the rock band Forrister (originally known as The Star Killers). During her freshman year in college she began writing solo material. In 2014 with the help of friend Michael Hegner she recorded an EP at Spacebomb Studios which she then released online via BandCamp. The EP eventually went on to become her debut studio album ‘Sprained Ankle’ which received critical acclaim upon it’s release in the fourth quarter of 2015. The album’s success led to Baker having features in both The New Yorker and The New York Times.

Baker’s second studio album ‘Turn Out The Lights; was recorded with Sorority Noise vocalist Cameron Boucher whom Baker has toured in recent years, as well as Sorority Noise she has also shared the stage with Death Cab For Cutie and Paramore.

In comparison to ‘Sprained Ankle’, ‘Turn Out the Lights’ has a higher production value and more fleshed out instrumentations however, it still retains the raw emotion captured in all of her previous works. It’s an incredibly emotional endeavour and the delicate instrumental ‘Over’ transitioning perfectly into the heart-wrenching ‘Appointments’ is enough to keep you hooked for the remaining 30 minutes of the record.

The first time I saw Deaf Havana perform live was at the Audio in Brighton back in 2011, just before the release of their second album ‘Fools and Worthless Liars’. Last Friday I got to see them perform on the final show of their recent UK tour, a sold-out show at London’s 02 Forum, and the experience was a far cry from that club gig six years ago. Opening their set with album opener ‘Ashes, Ashes’ accompanied by a simple acoustic guitar you could immediately hear the enthusiasm from the audience as the voices in the crowd powered over James Veck-Gilodi’s vocals. Once the first chorus kicked in it set the tone for the rest of the night and you could tell it was going to be special.  

The set list was topped heavy with tracks from ‘All These Countless Nights’, so much so that just four more songs and the album in its entirety would have been performed. It’s clear that singles ‘Trigger’ and ‘Fever’ have quickly become fan favourites. Both of which the band delivered with infectious amounts of energy, proving that they not only know how to write a fantastic record but they also know exactly how to translate their new songs live.   With a whopping eighteen song set list they still left plenty of room for old favourites including; ‘22’, ‘I’m a Bore, Mostly’ and ‘Mildred’ which claimed to be some of the liveliest of the night. 

Never one to hold back lyrically and unafraid to lay himself bare, ‘St Paul’s, ‘Anemophobia’ and ‘Happiness’ captured just that as the latter saw Veck-Golidi reflect on past struggles with alcohol and the affect it’s had on personal relationships, in what was one of the most emotional songs of the night.  Ending the set with ‘Hunstanton Pier’ was a cathartic moment. As the song drew to a close the crowd were ushered to sing the chorus back to the band a final time, not only did it sound magnificent but you could tell just how overwhelmed each member of the band was by what was happening. Throughout the night, they kept reinforcing the fact that London was home to them and it was clear that they were more than happy to be home. 

Storming back onto the stage to close the night with an encore consisting of ‘Boston Square’, ‘SING’ and finally ending the show with ‘All These Countless Nights’ closing track ‘Pensacola, 2013’ saw the set finishing just as strongly as it began and only seemed to leave the audience wanting more.