Tag: pop punk

Get ‘Lifted’ by Chandra

Chandra, Hindu God of the Moon, with his own NASA X-ray observatory named after him, and also frontman of a self-named friendly Bristol-based four-piece pop-punk band I’ve recently been introduced to; busy guy, I have to tell you about them…..

This band has been together since April and knocked out five singles already. The latest, Lifted is as the same suggests. It’s feel-good factors and amusing hooks immediately warm to you, but at the same time it’s an intelligently crafted grower, simply infectious! Chandra has put six tracks into an EP, titled Lifted too.

Chandra explained, “I spent a while trying to figure out my sound and what I wanted to write about. So the first few songs are very much me finding my way. Lighters To The Sky was a eureka moment and the song where things suddenly clicked.” You can hear this as this track is on the EP, alongside Pretty, Smile and I’ll Be There, perhaps rawer by nature, prototypes, but this upbeat sound with hints to carefree merriment has been perfected sublimely. Lifted is so commercially viable I’m going tingly, an elevating and uplifting anthem.

“I spent 2023 releasing singles in order to put a band together because literally nobody was interested in being in an originals band when I first started looking for people,” Chandra told us, so band members are from Bristol, Patchway, Trowbridge and Chandra himself is from Berkeley. “We’re a bit all over the place but Bristol is our common ground and where we play the most.”

Only geographically all over the place, I might add, Chandra sounds polished. We chatted about the desire of local circuit venues wanting cover bands, a frustrating reality for bands trying to produce original material. “Bristol is basically a hive of musicians who mostly play for two or three different covers bands,” he expressed, “and that’s fine of course, but playing covers just doesn’t give me that buzz. Originals is a tough slog but I get so much satisfaction  from the reactions. It means a thousand times more to me.”

This led me to name-drop Trowbridge’s Pump as a venue dedicated to original music and also promoting upcoming artists too. As I suspected they’re on this, and play there on Friday 4th October with Ben Waller & The Tell Tale Signs. Closer by date, they support Laissez Faire at the Thunderbolt this Thursday. 

The elevation to the latest single Lifted is bursting with potential, Smile (No Fox Gibbon) marks a milestone, there’s contemporary pop-punk goodness of Blink 182 or Green Day, yet melded subtly with English charm, whereas Lifted is defined, idiosyncratically melodious and my new favourite thing. I’m unsure where the final song Overload fits chronologically, but it is a moralistic acoustic chicken nugget, a gorgeous committed sound, displaying a more mellifluous side to Chandra.

The scope here is encouraging, but the compelling steadfast template they’ve created is simply irresistible already. If Chandra isn’t headlining by autumn I call for a national inquiry into why not!

What else is happening?!

Rooks; New Single From M3G

Chippenham folk singer-songwriter, M3G (because she likes a backward “E”) has a new single out tomorrow, Friday 19th December. Put your jingly bell cheesy tunes…

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Drag Me Down are Invincible; Fact!

Ah, hark the beatific resonances of an adolescent choir, in their prime; Swindon’s metal-skater-punk three-piece Drag me Down have a new single out, destined to take no prisoners.….

Released on 26th August (2022) Invincible is fresh loud and proud, if contemporary pop-punk bands like Sum41, just as a for example, are sounding tad commercialised and lite, either/or, Limp Bizkit be too rappy for your palette, this local garage powerhouse packs the punch of metal’s finest hour and plunges the rest of said genre against the ropes.

And they sent it to me for my appraisal, unaware I’m approaching fifty and should be looking over my glasses at them in disgust, complaining about skateboards in the park while sucking on a pipe and adjusting my slippers until the nurse passes me my meds; and I reckon it’s having it.

Its intro is unpredictably electronica, but kicks within ten seconds with a grungy carefree “this is our time” notion, and rolling drums of pop-punk is the hook which confirms it is exactly that, a beguiling up-to-date anthem. If, like me, you were unaware of these guys, this will permanently scar them into your neurons as they go from strength to strength, claiming to have learned “a few new tricks along the way.”

Formed in Swindon, the band have been friends since their pre-teen years and suggest they’ve “gone through every trial a young person could face while growing up in the UK,” yet emerge from the other end as a “no-nonsense unit of friends with only one goal: to put smiles on the faces of everyone who listens to us.” Ah, I can’t give ’em that, sorry, they don’t know they’ve been born!

If there was any truth in what I just said, least they’ve top marks on how to rock.

In true counterculture ethos, they’ve a DIY label, Whatevercords, and have teamed up with The Bottom Line, Hightail, and From Here On Out producer Zac Pritchett to whisk an ever-growing discography. They’ve played Furnace Fest at Swindon’s Level III with the likes of Polar, TRC and our purveyors of noise buddies NervEndings.

I forgo my right to a free bus pass unless it’ll take me to a Drag me Down gig, because based on this single alone, they’ve got every ingredient firmly placed for the lively, youthful denotation you need to be at when it goes off. So, yeah, I’m predicting these kids will go far, and as for pensioner whinges I’ll stop at: if not I want a full enquiry into why not.

Pre-save said ticking-timebomb HERE, and wait for detonation Friday week (26th August.)

Trending…..

One Of Us; New Single From Lady Nade

Featured Image by Giulia Spadafora Ooo, a handclap uncomplicated chorus is the hook in Lady Lade’s latest offering of soulful pop. It’s timelessly cool and…

Large Unlicensed Music Event Alert!

On the first day of advent, a time of peace and joy to the world et al, Devizes Police report on a “large unlicenced music…

Winter Festival/Christmas/Whatever!

This is why I love you, my readers, see?! At the beginning of the week I put out an article highlighting DOCA’s Winter Festival, and…

Devizes Winter Festival This Friday and More!

Who’s ready for walking in the winter wonderland?! Devizes sets to magically transform into a winter wonderland this Friday when The Winter Festival and Lantern…

Just the Beginning, Start The Sirens

If it’s the beginning, it’s a loud one; kicking punk album release from Start the Sirens out last week has got me potentially stage-diving off the top of wardrobe.…..

A collaboration of members from Trowbridge, Devizes, Westbury and Wotton Bassett, Start The Sirens formed in 2019, hit the pandemic with an acoustic EP, which bassist Leyton Jones, aka Rocky explains was an experimental project to “find our own style, and achieve that upbeat sound.” Just the Beginning is the kicking debut, and a testament to accomplishment; they rock it with bells on.

If Forget What You Heard sets the mood, kick-ass skater punk which takes no prisoners, the second track Sunset to Sunrise breathes an air of carefree ingenuity akin to millennial pop-punk. Three tunes in though, Tell Me hints of traditional punk, well, at me it does! Lead vocalist Holly Harwood in Siouxsie Sioux fashion, especially with the “Whoa Whoa” chorus. It’s beguiling stuff hard to pinpoint but with a wave insensible to pigeonholing; just shut it and rock out.

Keen though I am to shelf this with punk roots, for it has that DIY ethos, Rocky was adamant to cite pop-punk and emo bands like New Found Glory and Blink 182 as obvious influences, and I’m forced to shed my aged perceptions and agree, it’s high-energy vibes and doesn’t come up for air, but cast in positive light rather than the dejected attitude of original punk. Positivity was key, Rocky established with me.

Design by Nikki Noodle

We spoke of tricky placements in local circuit pub gigs, though the band rocked Trowbridge’s Stallards last weekend, play the Old Bear Staverton tonight (2nd June) at 8pm, and support USA’s Hit Like A Girl with Brighton-based I Feel Fine, for a Sheer Music gig at The Village Pump on Friday 17th June. Rocky spelled out their motivation was a labour of love, and based on this showcase album, they should be placed firmly on a touring map of UK punk venues. Though I think Swindon’s Vic should snap them up, Bradford’s Three Horseshoes and Devizes Southgate would love it too.

Seven original three-to-four-minute heroes here, the penultimate This One’s For You perhaps the most enticingly commercially viable, and it finishes with one final name-sake anthem blast; I’m looking forward to catching these guys live. What? No, I’m convinced I still got it, mate! I’ve told you my story of Dad’s taxi to a Bowling for Soup gig at Bristol’s O2 before, haven’t I? I was like leaning on the railings of the upper area when I perchance to spot another glum looking expression on a guy of similar age. Seems like he was also chaperone to his kids, and we did the dad nod. Then I thought fuck it, I’m here, allowed to enjoy myself too and tried to drag that son to the mosh pit!

I may be outdated for the skater punk detonation, but it’s high energy, full of zest and aspiration, that’s my take, and something Start the Sirens has captured here; have a listen, get ’em in your local….  

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Snow White Delight: Panto at The Wharf

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Chatting With Burn The Midnight Oil

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