Interlaker
Interlaker
Your enjoyment of Interlaker will likely map onto how much you enjoyed Lonely The Brave. Like, one-to-one. Where David Jakes’ post-LTB solo work was a slighter replica of that exact thing, Interlaker barely even has that distinction. The presence of Arcane Roots’ Jack Wrench on drums as the project’s other core member is almost immaterial; any of his own creative DNA is so vastly and soundly overshadowed. Is that so bad, though? Particularly early on, Lonely The Brave were a towering, elemental antidote to throwaway Britrock, in now small part due to Jakes’ vocals that could rip the earth asunder with each beleaguered voice-rumble. You’ll never get that exact magnitude back so long after the fact, but Interlaker’s willingness to try has its noble intentions pay off nonetheless.
The central concept is that same, after all—landslides of alt-rock evocative of nature’s own exhalations, pristine and uninhibited but also gruff and weather-bitten. The beauty of all that is how it ages exponentially more gracefully than Britrock of a similar vintage, meaning that there’s much more space to work around a lack of true innovation or even tweaks of much significance. Ghostride is the first great example, a slow-burn where every sinew is affected by the tension of the circular guitar and drums, as they work to crest into a hook where Jakes can simply gush. Call Out The Wolves follows on largely the same track, only now with a harder, snarling shell for a callout to Vladimir Putin in a hen’s-teeth moment of political ire. The message is hardly that radical—and as the biggest ‘change’ that Interlaker bear, it’s barely anything—but it still fits the pre-existing, pre-working bill.
There is a ‘safety’ to Interlaker that’s always prevalent but never unexpected. Jakes isn’t the sort of creative who’d take the colossal swings into stardom; from the beginning, that was never even on the table. Instead, Interlaker is the comfortable median between his tried-and-true alt-rock grindstone, and the hoary bellows of a man who clearly isn’t boxing his release in. They were the exact components of prime Lonely The Brave—often in the same ratios—brought back in how sweeping and epic a song like Spite Of Day is, or how the hooks of Be The One and Coming Out hit with the integrity and churn of tumbling boulders. When “it’s just the same” will be levied as a criticism, Interlaker spare no expense in reinforcing how self-evidently good ‘the same’ is.
It’s one of the cleanest, most straightforward continuations of a past musical thread in recent memory, fully aware of past strengths that haven’t budged amid tumultuous industry fads and trends. The same can be said of Lonely The Brave themselves nowadays, too, but Interlaker are bringing back the special sauce that made those earlier years feel unbeatable. If not for standing on the shoulders of the giant that is The Day’s War, Interlaker probably wouldn’t be as impactful as they are. That’s meant as a compliment, by the way—spawning from one of its age’s true greats, Interlaker aren’t as earth-shattering, but the value in disturbing and remoulding the already-broken ground is considerable in its own right.
For fans of: Lonely The Brave, Thrice, Deaf Havana
‘Interlaker’ by Interlaker is out now on Hassle Records.
Acres
What It’s Like To Feel Worthless
Aww, don’t be like that, guys—you’re not worthless. Not in the metaphysical sense, anyway. As for work, others might have some differing opinions on a band who are often dull or passé or behind the times when they aren’t blatantly nipping at Holding Absence’s heels. Even then, though, ‘worthless’ is just too harsh an admonition for a band like Acres. Chances are you never even think about them outside of corner cases like this, where they put out new music that’s deigned to get some coverage through pure obligation. They’re big enough to justify that, apparently, even when they’ll more than likely produce very, very little to speak on.
At least the carrot that they’ll dangle first thing on this new EP seems a bit more appetising. Leave You To Rot might actually convince you they’re embarking on something different, where the metalcore that’s either been purely peripheral or outsourced to a guest star takes root, and actually isn’t all that bad. By set standards, anyway; there’s nothing scene-warpingly drastic about a pounding low end glazed with vaguely industrial coating, but it’s still okay. And although it might proceed on the next song A Different Shade Of Misery—albeit in a form where you couldn’t even pretend to hide the Bring Me The Horizon worship—by Lost, Acres are back to their usual tricks. Wide, emotive, turn-of-the-2010s post-hardcore is the fashion, with the usual lack of spin to give Acres any kind of specialty within it. To be fair, Lost has a stickier-than-average hook, although that only really comes through in its acoustic version stuck at the EP’s end as a bonus.
Suffice to say, this isn’t a very impactful listen, in any which way it might believe it is. The imagery of snakes or moths to a flame may be appropriately anachronistic for Acres in particular, but that’s no excuse for the total lack of meaning they now have. Likewise, Ben Lumber’s voice as a mushing together of Britrock’s ‘emotionally-charged’ goodboys just doesn’t fly as high anymore, not when Lucas Woodland is right over there with the exact same tone (but, y’know…better). And it’s not even like any of this is bad, as much as profoundly uninteresting. In 2024, when we’re roughly a fucking quantum leap away from the heyday of this stuff, you can aim higher! You don’t need to lock yourself into this, Acres, especially when it wasn’t even working that well to begin with.
More than with many, it brings into question what the purpose of this EP even is. It’s certainly not the teaser of a bold, new era to come, because any changes are too negligible to matter. It’s either a stopgap until another full-length of equally homogenous fare, or the only thing that Acres could come up with when they’re so boxed in. Either seems plausible, honestly. Until the true answer is revealed, though, you’ve got this to get along with—more of the same from Acres that’s seemingly unaware that, at every corner, you couldn’t be more spoiled for choice for alternatives.
For fans of: Holding Absence, Casey, Caskets
‘What It’s Like To Feel Worthless’ by Acres is out now on Solid State Records.
Karen Dió
My World
She isn’t the Brazilian-via-Hastonian descendent of Ronnie James (presumably), but Karen Dió still has the spirit of a legend. Granted, spirit on its own equates to basically nothing without something to back it up. The pop-punk soloists that Dió could easily be tossed in with all have ‘spirit’, and most of what they’ve done this year has been god-awful. At least Dió has the background in bands that’s a little more promising, if only to isolate an aptitude for something that aims higher than a viral TikTok sound.
Still, My World isn’t exactly bolting forward, as a very simplistic, entry-friendly version of punk carried most by Dió’s spunk. She’s manufactured a riot grrrl persona that’s broad yet largely believable, with the snark and sneer in the right places for Poor Man and So Funny. There’s enough to present these songs as workable archetypes, the kind of songs that mostly skew younger to compensate for a lack of a properly hard hit. It’s certainly true of 3 AM as the ragged, 50-second burst of shallow punk ephemera designed to invoke a starting block for the ‘real’ stuff. It’ll probably be too basic for anyone already deep in the loop, but it could bring some new listeners in, at least.
But even from that angle, it’s hard to feel out My World’s staying power. It’s already short and without crosshatched threads of replayable detail; it’s punk bluntness that strips back even further an ethos characterised by being roughshod and makeshift. Stretching beyond a cache of pop-punk or garage-rock fundamentals feels like a tall ask for Dió, and it’s really only achieved on Sick Ride via the brattiness that presumably wants to be embodied elsewhere. At least the effort is genuine, not another influencer type piggybacking on a style for ease of opportunity. From the way that Dió carries herself, the believability holds firm.
It’s why there’s not really an issue with her sticking around and picking up traction—gateway artists do have a place. The oldheads might scoff at an imprint of the beloved, sacred punk this basic (or just because a woman is making it; it happens), but the world is still spinning, at the end of the day. From a personal perspective, this is a flash-in-the-pan listen, even more so than punk of similarly uncomplicated stock. But at least Dió has an earnestness to serve her well, and give My World a modicum of pure, deserved charm. More of that from this stripe of artist would be much appreciated, thanks.
For fans of: The Donnas, The Distillers, The Dollyrots
‘My World’ by Karen Dió is out now on Hopeless Records.
Gore.
A Bud That Never Blooms
If the thought of a NASA engineer fronting a metalcore band seems a little odd, you should probably consider how Gore.’s Haley Roughton also used to sing for the symphonic death metal band The Xebellian Triangle, just to really soak up the dissonance. For the one espousing fittingly cosmic ambition, though, Gore. is where it’s at. They’re heavy on the Spiritbox wavelength so it’s not too shocking, but their precociousness within it just might be. This is Gore.’s debut EP, and you’d never tell with how ready for prime time they already are.
Within the first few seconds of A Bud That Never Blooms, it’s an impression that Gore. make abundant. Pray kicks off in pleasingly forceful fashion, wielding its enormo-chugs with the right amount of discord into a metalcore blend of contemporary heft and all-consuming atmosphere. So, yeah, it is just like Spiritbox, but can you blame a new band from cribbing a couple of notes from one of the genre’s most successful modern exports? Seeing that they’re one of about a single-digit number of names who’ve made tech-metal accessible and memorable in recent years, not really. Besides, Gore.’s acumen is way more ironclad than you’d find from mere copycats. Doomsday and Angels Like You prove that, in brushing with more melodic, sometimes poppier alt-metal while keeping the main appeal intact.
Regardless of whether you can deem this whole thing ‘played-out’ or ‘samey’ (which, a lot of the time, it is), the evidence is there that Gore. aren’t just cruising. A voice like Roughton’s wouldn’t be nearly as strident, if that were the case. Plus, a song like Doomsday brandishing an opening line like “I peek my head outside and watch the cops kill all my neighbours kids” carries a certain degree of intent regardless. It fits the emphasis of Gore.’s work being in unfiltered depictions of life and humanity’s attrition within it, topped off by divine imagery to bring out its grandeur. The want for size is pretty much sewn into the text, and pulled off in way that are like second nature for all involved.
In other words, don’t be surprised if you start hearing Gore.’s name a lot, not when they’ve forgone growing pains entirely to head straight for the stratosphere. Maybe that’s the transferable end of Roughton’s day job coming through—the knowledge of how to take flight as efficiently as possible. A Bud That Never Blooms manages that in just five tracks, compared to what others in the field still won’t replicate after multiple albums. That’s the kind of star power we’re potentially dealing with here.
For fans of: Spiritbox, Architects, Bad Omens
‘A Bud That Never Blooms’ by Gore. is out now on Spinefarm Records.
Words by Luke Nuttall
