The Evan Whitton Blog: After Hours

Glen Matlock - Consequences Coming - The Singles, Reviewed Glen Matlock is arguably one of the most pivotal figures in punk music history. Founding member and bassist of the Sex Pistols, it was Glen’s talent for songwriting that gave the band some of their most formative and best loved tracks like ‘Pretty Vacant’ before leaving in 1977. But unlike other members of the band, aside from reunions, Glen hasn’t really had a permanent fixture: John Lydon has PiL, Paul Cook and Steve Jones had The Professionals and various notable session appearances, but Glen’s been all over the place. He formed Rich Kids, played with The Faces (along with many, many other bands) and most recently toured with Blondie. He has released a solo album before, and with his second solo outing, ‘Consequences Coming’ releasing on April 28th, I’ll be able to get my first taste of the “real” Glen Matlock. Obviously I wasn’t expecting the music to have the same level of furor as it did forty five years ago, but I was su...

Sleaford Mods - UK GRIM - The Singles, Reviewed Sleaford Mods are probably the most well renowned act in the modern post-punk scene. Starting in 2007 with vocalist Jason Williamson ranting over illegally sampled funk, reggae and rock loops, he teamed up with producer Andrew Fearn around 2011, and since then have released 6 albums. First with the more primitive fan favourites 'Austerity Dogs' and 'Divide and Exit', the Mods carved out a sound all of their own, Fearn's backdrop of raw, gritty drums and bass and esoteric synth fragments perfectly complimenting Jason's rage-fuelled rants on the shittyness of UK life. They went on to expand this sound on later albums like 'English Tapas' and particularly their most recent album 'Spare Ribs'. which on the whole went for a much more eclectic, textured and glitchy sonic palette which was very much welcomed by me. While some of the kinks did need ironing out a little bit, with news of a new album, 'UK...

Evan's Extraneous Interests: My Personal Best of Stand-Up Comedy Genres: Part 2 of 3 Welcome back to the second part of my personal best of stand-up comedy genres. As the title suggests, over 3 articles, I intend to present what I believe to be the best of the best in terms of stand-up comedy videos in a variety of different genres, 9 in all, to recommend for your viewing pleasure. To recap the winners last time: the observational category went to Peter Kay with 'Live at the Bolton Albert Halls', the one liner category went to Tim Vine's 'Joke-amotive' show, and the dark/edgy/political category went to Richard Herring's 'Hitler Moustache' (with honourable mentions given to Jamali Maddix's 'Hate Thy Neighbour' hybrid docuseries, as well as his 'King Crud' tour show, despite not being on video). So with that out of the way, let's get on with announcing the winners for categories 4 through 6. To start with, how about a bit of blu...

Enter Shikari - A Kiss for the Whole World - The Singles, Reviewed  When I first discovered Enter Shikari, they seemed like a distillation of some of my favourite music. I love electronic music, I love metal music, and so a band whose sound combines the two in equal measure sounded like a great idea. Sure, other bands had a crack at this, but none quite approached the quality level of Shikari, with great albums like 2007’s ‘Take to the Skies’, or my personal favourite, 2016’s ‘The Mindsweep’, an electronicore album of truly epic proportions. Now, following 2020’s decent, if a little spotty and overindulgent ‘Nothing is True & Everything is Possible’, the band are back with their “euphoric” new album ‘A Kiss For The Whole World’, scheduled for 21st April. So, let’s take a look at the singles, to see if we can get an idea of where the band are heading this time around. (pls) set me on fire This is pretty much everything you want from a lead single from an Enter Shikari album. Beg...

Public Image Ltd. - End Of World - The Singles, Reviewed Formed in 1978 after the chaotic breakup of punk pioneers The Sex Pistols, Public Image Ltd. (or PiL), saw singer John Lydon and a revolving door of guests plunge deep into the musical abstract, while maintaining an abrasive edge. This was seen first with seminal post-punk albums ‘First Issue’ and ‘Metal Box’, defined by a combination of deep basslines, frenetic grooves, shrieking metallic guitars and Lydon’s manic, unhinged vocals and distinctive lyricism. They experimented more with heavy percussion on albums like ‘The Flowers of Romance’ and ‘This Is What You Want... This Is What You Get’, before making a severely underrated stylistic shift into their own brand of alternative rock in the mid-80s up until their hiatus in 1993. Since reforming in 2009, the group have released two albums: ‘This is PiL’ in 2012, and ‘What The World Needs Now’ in 2015, both operating off of a brilliant mix of rock, dance, dub, avant-garde and pret...

Temps - Party Gator Purgatory - The Singles, Reviewed Over the last decade or so, James Acaster has established himself as one of the most absurd, unique, and best loved stand up comics in the world, with his stand-up Netflix series ‘Repertoire’, as well as his subsequent special, ‘Cold Lasagne Hate Myself 1999’, in which he discusses “the worst year of his life”: 2017. Arguably the main result of that year is that James began to obsessively buy music from the previous year, and subsequently set out on a quest to prove why 2016 is the greatest year for music of all time. He wrote a book about it, presents a podcast about it, and now has managed to turn it into a musical side project called Temps. Pulling on the talents of many of the artists he discovered in his escapades, the idea is that Acaster sends each collaborator a basic drum backing track, giving them free reign to put whatever on top, after which Acaster would edit these contributions together into a sort of musical ...

  Slaves Go Soft - How Not To Change Your Band Name Since 2012, the duo of Laurie Vincent and Isaac Holman, formerly known as Slaves, had established themselves as one of the most fun, riotous, but also most experimental, nuanced, and commercially successful punk acts of the modern age. First there was ‘Sugar Coated Bitter Truth’ in 2012, a rough, exuberant, angry EP that was also a ton of fun and acted as a fantastic introduction to the duo. 2015’s ‘Are You Satisfied?’ built on this with more fleshed out songwriting and catchier choruses, but still without sacrificing that initial rebellious appeal. Then in 2016 we got the “mixtape” ‘Take Control’, produced by the Beastie Boys’ Mike D, which saw them bring in more influences from hip-hop, post-punk and industrial, making it their most boldly experimental release. ‘Acts of Fear and Love’ followed in 2018, expanding more on the straight-up rock sounds of ‘Are You Satisfied?’, with much more variety in its sound palette, its lyrics a...

Metallica - 72 Seasons - The Singles, Reviewed Metallica are not only the biggest thrash metal band, but also arguably the biggest band in metal music full stop, producing a quintet of classic albums in their first 10 years, the rough and ready debut ‘Kill Em’ All’ in 1983 showing great potential, built on with albums like all time metal classic ‘Master of Puppets’, and even breaching into the mainstream with ‘The Black Album’ in 1991. Although since then their output has been spotty to say the least, with the incredibly divisive ‘Load’ and ‘Reload’, the infamous disaster ‘St. Anger’, and with their output since being considered OK by most accounts, but not much else (aside from ‘Lulu’ with Lou Reed in 2011, which despite the huge hate, I love and I make no apologies for it). Now, following a 7-year hiatus, and with renewed interest thanks to a notable inclusion in Netflix’s ‘Stranger Things’, the band are back with ‘72 Seasons’, produced by metal titan Greg Fidelman and set for releas...