The Warning
Keep Me Fed
One of the more interesting developments among 2024’s music is how game people seem to be to give The Warning a go. You may have caught their name in passing, but it’s never had the thrust to result in decent-sized headline tours or an album campaign with strikingly long legs. Even if you’d never lose them among the metric tons of weekend warriors that retro hard rock has (being an all-sister, Mexican rock band is already a superficial uniqueness), they’ve reached a key juncture on Keep Me Fed that’ll open new strata on its own. The aura of “this is the one” is too overwhelming not to.
Interestingly though, there’s only actually one Spanish language song on this album, as if to knowingly cast off what might be presumed as a core gimmick, and allow The Warning to rise entirely on their own merits. In itself, that’s a great start. Not only does it imply the confidence that a band really does need to escape the trad-rock doldrums, but when Keep Me Fed is indeed riding so high on its abilities, it almost feels like a barrier broken. Even if the comparisons drawn to Halestorm will be inevitable, you can’t complain at being on that level. Burnout and Hell You Call A Dream are already salivating to get on an arena stage, as is the general demeanour of straightforwardly gut-punching rock music where frills are unneeded.
You can dig a bit deeper to find the snarling self-criticism of S!CK or the gaze into the jaws of misanthropy on Escapism, but the truth is that The Warning function perfectly fine on the most surface level a rock band can exist on. The vocals from all three sisters howl exactly as needed, against garage-gritted riffs and the musculature they in turn form. If you’re expecting even a modicum of difference from where hard rock typically is…well, that’s what The Warning are actively minimising with Qué Más Quieres standing alone. It’s also not really the point to expect that, though. By now, with hard rock’s upper crust consisting almost exclusively of the best propagators of the formula, it makes more sense to stick to that than field any sort of risk. Perhaps that all sounds counterintuitive to the swaggering, sweltering attitude that keeps The Warning pushing on, but don’t get that confused with sterility or a lack of power when the overlap is minimal, at best.
In any case, it’ll be enough to get The Warning up to the level that’s been in preparation for them for months now. In the way that bands like this radiate their own competence, it just rings as incredibly obvious on Keep Me Fed. There’s nothing of trudging ennui or dishwater tones; instead, the big, broadly-painted target is always hit with reasonable accuracy. And within the subset of rock they’ve found themselves in, that’ll be enough for The Warning’s trajectory to continue, if not indefinitely then for a good chunk of time. For those who’ve found themselves recently swept up and onboard, Keep Me Fed will be a perfectly filling listen.
For fans of: Halestorm, The Pretty Reckless, Dorothy
‘Keep Me Fed’ by The Warning is out now on Republic Records.
Amongst Liars
By Design
The advantage that Amongst Liars have on most of the post-grunge crowd is that the life hasn’t left their eyes yet. They’re still trying where plenty of others have given up, which is obviously how they’ve now delivered two fairly good albums in succession. And let’s be clear—they aren’t doing anything special. More so, it goes to show how, in rock music’s more basic forms, effort really is the deciding factor. Compared to now-two-time tourmates Theory Of A Deadman and their habit of making music out to be the most gruelling chore imaginable, Amongst Liars are head and shoulders above.
And yeah, you still have to acknowledge the macro, and how By Design isn’t wholly riveting on that scale. This is a post-grunge album, at the end of the day, meaning that regardless of political awareness and how fired up Ian George is to espouse it, you’re looking at glancing blows at best for anything approaching depth. That’s how Ready For This? and You Are Not A Slave feel—vocally scathing to fill the remainder of space from average content. But on the post-grunge grading curve—the flattened line that it is—any sign of deeper engagement is a good start. George convincingly carries a rock ‘n’ roll posture, and can be gritty and biting enough to connect on the exact level that it matters. Compared to No Control’s guest performance from Richie Hevanz (the original Heaven’s Basement vocalist, before anyone even cared about them) and his squawk of a classic rock also-ran, you can’t really dismiss it.
The same is true of the sound, in that it’s never revelatory but grasps the solid fundamentals that it should. Aside from Vice and its smeared-on synth embellishments that make their only appearance so awkwardly far into the album, By Design uniformly lines up meat-and-potatoes rock standards effectively enough. The riffs will sate, generally, as should hooks operating on a wavelength of ‘absolutely the dominant force here’. Although they’re rarely as sticky as Alibi, it’s commendable just how little obvious filler By Design has. It’s a nice subversion of what you often get from albums like this, and can handily boost Amongst Liars as a ‘credible’ band. You can tell they’re British, in that sense; when their American counterparts in the style continue to tire themselves out before even making a proper statement, the decision to avoid that just has to be a conscious one.
The likelihood is that the right people will take notice of that, too. For their sins, post-grunge and radio-rock don’t tend to sit in commercial torpor for too long, and if the opportunity comes where Amongst Liars are given their boost, that honestly wouldn’t be awful. Their two albums are better than what the majority of A-listers have pumped out recently; taking it to a bigger stage is just a natural next step. Breaking out of that bubble is a different matter, and one that By Design might not quite be equipped to cope with on its own, but in the right field, there’d be no issues whatsoever. Let’s hope Amongst Liars can keep it that way; they’re too competent to be wind up another bunch of jaded washouts.
For fans of: Heaven’s Basement, Shinedown, Badflower
‘By Design’ by Amongst Liars is released on 4th July on Earache Records.
Honey Joy
III
Apropos of more than you might anticipate, the boom of UK indie-punk is basically over now. It’s a little bittersweet to see; even if the majority of its practitioners did sound remarkably alike since its mid-2010s genesis, a self-sufficient little DIY scene like that is always good to have around. Regardless, it’ll be pretty much exclusively the top layer who’ll find their feet going forward, and a new album from Honey Joy should clarify that that does indeed include them. A little more of ‘punk’ can go a significant way, apparently, all the way up to surviving relative genre implosion.
Now, compared to a name like Martha who’ve actually parlayed into a stronger foothold on the whole, Honey Joy are still tied up in their niche. The hallmarks of that wave of indie-punk remain in spades—the bouncier guitars; the unobtrusive production that reveals a pleasantly study bass presence; and in Megan Tinsley, a vocalist for whom regional earnestness utterly trounces performance somersaults or the most front-forward mix. The DIY energy is gushing out of this one, and kept rather well-maintained throughout. It’s Honey Joy’s punkier streak that nails that down, where sub-two-minute songs in Language or Are You Still Having Fun? feel overall snappier, with a crackle that spreads through osmosis to everything around them. This isn’t a long album whatsoever, and it’s all the better for it.
And although that’s practically unchanged from what worked about III’s predecessor (the basic, numbered titles should be more than enough to clue you in on how this is all just continuance on a crop of ideas), it does still work now. The benefit of having more space around it makes that more apparent, as the melodies wind up more crisp and infectious and the writing style is less dulled from overexposure. Though, that’s also anchored in much more solid grounding from Tinsley’s experiences as a nurse during the pandemic, where closer-to-home details on Ready Now, Wake Up and especially Thursdays At 8pm strike a more vigorous chord than a view from the outside. Swaddled in the grassroots presentation, you find Honey Joy building some stronger connections and sketching out a more robust indie-punk profile for themselves.
It’s probably not the only reason they’ve managed to stick around, but it undoubtedly helps. There’s more of an identity that’s handy to relay compared to a lot of their contemporaries, and when III seemingly doubles down on that, obviously it’s going to feel more satisfying. If any band were to bear the torch for this type of indie-punk on this level, it probably should be Honey Joy. Between their understanding of the sound and a more developed perspective within it, it’s not hard to see how this could vault past most others and stick the landing.
For fans of: Martha, Happy Accidents, Cherym
‘III’ by Honey Joy is released on 5th July on Everything Sucks Music.
Vower
Apricity
Vower—in the tradition of bands formed from the still-sore demise of Black Peaks—have hit their stride with their literal first steps. Notably, however, the influx of superb creative DNA comes from a couple more sources, too. There’s Palm Reader in here, on the eve of their own breakup in which they’ll step down as one of UK hardcore’s most under-appreciated greats, and Toska, the by-far third place of this lot, but still a solid prog band in their own time. So when the resultant Apricity handily speaks for itself as four tracks of white-hot, progressive post-hardcore in happy matrimony of all of its constituent parts, surely you could’ve guessed that from just the lineup, right?
Again, this pedigree leaves no cause for doubt, from all angles. Shroud is the perfect introduction, a song just as comfortable in its harshness as its melody thanks to Josh Mckeown’s swooping vocals, the oscillating riffs and a rhythm section with an exceptional hold on everything, particularly towards the end. That’s then replicated another three times, if to illustrate how none of this is a fluke. The alchemy here is just that powerful, and charted to perfection for songs about taking a leap into the unknown, worries and consequences be damned. Driven by their own metatext, Vower take that leap and absolutely soar.
What’s more, you can really pinpoint the strings of each individual’s former projects and the precision with which they’ve meshed together. Black Peaks feel like the obvious base, but Palm Reader’s grandeur and Toska’s ear for detail pull it all in place. It leads to moments like the melodic backbone of False Rituals that swelters and deforms under its own adventurousness, or the ludicrously huge closer Eyes Of A Nihilist that remains mobile in ever-evolving scope. As a band borne from the most thought-provoking of British post-hardcore, Vower haven’t dialled that back at all. In every conceivable way, Apricity is exactly what a band built up of these parts would promise.
And for a word referring to the warmth of the sun in winter, that also reads as another component in Vower’s arc. Three acts falling to harsh circumstances have pooled their efforts and risen again, as a blazing fire of innovation and creativity from their own bleak circumstances. ‘Redemption’ has too many negative connotations behind it, but it’s absolutely a comeback that atomises the adversity that might have otherwise been there. Once again, you wouldn’t expect anything different from this band, but the fact it’s all actually come to pass makes it so much better.
For fans of: Black Peaks, Palm Reader, Devil Sold His Soul
‘Apricity’ by Vower is released on 8th July.
Words by Luke Nuttall
