Mick Birchall Reviews

  2020... What can we truly say about this complete clusterfuck of a year? In all seriousness, it's been a year of confusion, depression, anxiety and misery. You know what they say though "in tough times, at least we will get some good music!" This was as true as ever this year as there were some truly excellent albums being released left, right and centre. I feel kinda bad about not covering more but because of stress and anxiety this year I've had to drop the blog completely. So, I genuinely apologise about this. To make up for it, instead of creating an "arbitrary number of best albums for the year", I am just going to talk about every album that was exceptionally good this year. The music that helped me through this tough year and put a smile on my face. As a music blogger, I feel like I should be trying to guide you to music that you'll ultimately love. If I can do that, then I will consider myself successful in my endeavour. So, get ready to search...

Impavidus are back with a new single and as soon as I heard, I was immediately interested. It’s been a long, long year without gigs. However, getting new music is always appreciated. This new song, Justice was recorded in 2019 at the same time as their tune Artifice . So they’ve had this song locked and loaded for a minute. It was recorded at Foel Studios and it sounds great. It’s a fact-paced, power-packed blast to the senses with a strong riff and a solid hook. The meaty, crushing metal tune grabs your attention straight away. The production is filled to the brim with harsh metal tones. The bass and drum work tightly together setting a fierce and brutal pace. The bass is deep and keeps the pace going allowing the guitar to go wild, especially in the solo, which elevates the track and gives it that little bit of extra power. Everything musically sounds excellent, every piece of instrumentation packs that punch and sonically it makes you want to get up and headbang away. Then you ge...

There are so many bands that I find interesting for a variety of reasons. Maybe it’s how they sound, maybe it’s how they market themselves, maybe it’s just their personalities. For me, I feel like a band that I’ve always loved and found just fascinating is The Naked and Famous . The electronic indie rock back from Aukland in New Zealand first caught my attention with their 2010 debut album Passive Me, Aggressive You . Ever since they have always been on my radar as a band to look out for. Their music is always so powerful, emotional and well composed that I always end up putting their albums on my year-end best-of lists. “So, they’ve released a new album this year?” you’re asking me. Yes, indeed they have. They released the album Recover in July and I have been loving it so much. However, instead of just talking about the new album, I thought it would be fun to take a journey through all of their studio album releases. That way you get a good look at their music and everything this ba...

Photo by Ronan McGrade Where do you think your passion for music came from? Hard to know, but I got the bug young and that was it. My parents always listened to a lot of music and my brother who plays in the band with me paved the way by learning guitar. That’s probably why I started out as a drummer, so we could start a band. What is your method for coming up with new songs? I usually get a notion for a song first. A melody, a chorus, a line, sometimes just a word will fall from the sky without warning and you have to stop and take note, then I carry it around for a while until one day I’m sitting with a guitar and the rest comes together. Usually quite quickly. I have a theory that the longer a song takes to write, the longer it takes the listener to get it, so I don’t struggle for it. The best ones come in a flash. If it isn’t working I forget about it, put it back in my pocket and keep it with me a while longer, sometimes years, until the time is right. What are your plan...