Mick Birchall Reviews | Interviews, Gig Reports & Album Reviews

Mick: I was literally just listening to the new album, Crystal Eyes, before I got the call. I've really been enjoying it so far. What differences do you feel between this album and your previous work, in terms of what you’ve taken into writing/recording this record? Ann: I mean, it’s been a very short time between these two albums, Sharp Objects and Crystal Eyes . So it's connected in some way because if you're looking back, it was a bigger gap between Killer Machine and Sharp Objects . So I think we're still in a mood like writing new songs. I mean, I don't know how you listeners feel, but for me, it's like we are in a new mode, like more of a Dead Boy s , The Dictators , Blondie kind of mode. So I think it's like the Sharp Objects and Crystal Eyes is a bit connected to each other, the two albums, because we wrote it in like two years, the two albums.   Mick: You’ve called this your most powerful album yet; could you elaborate? Ann: I mean, it would be w...

Screenshot Taken from  Hypnosaur live @ SoundArt Festival, 14.03.2025, Quantic, Bucharest After I published my editorial about the Polish stoner-rock band, Hypnosaur , and off the back of the release of their second album, Afterlife , I got the opportunity to sit down and chat with the full band: Bartosz Kulczycki (vocals, keyboards), Michał Siedlecki (guitar, backing vocals), Marcin “Farf” Jastrzębski (bass), and Marcin Szóstakowski (drums). In this interview, we spoke about the production of the new album, their songwriting process, and the struggles of being an independent band in 2026. This is a great look into the band and their thoughts. Also, being able to talk to the full band was interesting. This interview serves as a complementary piece to my original blog about them. Mick: Hi, thanks for joining me today. How are you guys doing? Farf: Yeah, we're great, and all of us are here actually, which wasn't the plan in the first place. So, you've got the whole band, whi...

Escape The Hive is an exciting band exploding out of the independent scene and getting ready to take over with their new album coming out in 2026, now signed with Deko Entertainment/Warner Brothers Music. I had the opportunity to sit with band members, Michael Beck (Lead Vocals) and Paul Williams (Bass & Backing Vocals), to discuss the new record, their writing, their live shows and their influences. This is a fun interview with two great guys. It’s gotten me excited for the new album. Mick: Thank you for taking the time to speak to me. So, you have a new album coming out next month. I took a listen to the new single “Around The Sun”, and I really quite enjoyed it. I guess my first question is, what were the lessons you took from the first record into this one? Michael: Paul, you want to take that one? Paul: Well, the first record and the second record are so different, just timeline-wise. The first record was just Michael and me writing the songs. There were just a bunch of riffs,...

    Mick: So, we’ll start with the obvious question: how did you all come together? This is your first album and your initial introduction to the world. How did you all get together? Andy:  This is a question for Dom. Dom: So, the six of us are all good friends, and we've played in bands for a long time. We’ve played in different bands. Half of the band played as a wedding band for a while. They had some success with that. Then, towards the end of that, they wanted to do a bit more on the creative side. So, we got together to make something of our own. Andy had an idea called “The Buffalo Men” as a label for him to play with other musicians, for playing local gigs, and trying to record some songs. However, it was a loose label, but not like a set lineup. Then, a few years ago, we started to play together more. We were six friends, and we decided we all wanted to kind of take it just a bit more seriously, and maybe even try and work towards an album. That was a specific go...

M: Your new album, Total Obscurity , is out on Friday, 7th November, and I've been listening to it pretty much all week. Could you describe what lessons you took from your previous album, Darkness In My Home , when going into this new record? J: I think we stopped thinking in the box. Like, we wanted to defy expectations. We did away with the mentality that “it needs to have a specific structure, or maybe this is too simple, or maybe that's too complicated”. So, we kinda dropped all of that, and we just went in with what we wanted to play and what felt right at the time. You'll see that most of the songs are not that long, like previous albums. We just wanted to play the songs naturally, and after we felt that it was ready and we liked it, we just stopped. We didn't have to put extra effort to make it more interesting or whatever, you know. It just felt right. M: Would you say that it was like restricting yourself that made this a bit more of an open record? J: Yeah, it...

Still Dusk have been gaining a lot of traction lately as they burn up the Greek underground rock scene. After COVID, the band have been pushing forward with full steam. Following their debut EP, Graden , they've been hard at work on the full debut album. With the release of the single "Insidious" and their album, Chronicles of Dystopia , set to release in June, I had the opportunity to ask their bassist and vocalist, Konstantinos Stavrou , some questions to gain insight into the workings of one of Greece's fastest-rising stars. What are some of the lessons you took from working your EP, Garden, that you’re taking into the album Chronicles of Dystopia? -Well, this time we were well prepared. We spent some time in preproduction, so we could see if any ideas didn't sound well and fix everything before hitting the studio. There were also no distractions this time. Besides David Prudent, the owner of Made in Hell studio, there was only the person recording in the roo...