20 BEST RADICAL MUSICAL RELEASES OF 2017

Posted on January 6, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Arts, Music That Matters and tagged 2017, albums, Algiers, Anarchy.ForSale, anti-venom, Autonomad, Beans on Toast, Benjamin Zephaniah, cypress hill, DSM GlobalCollective, enter shikari, featured, Flogging Molly, Ibeyi, In Evil Hour, jesus and his judgemental father, Joey Bada$$, Mala rodriguez, Martha, MTM, music, music that matters, Nas, Niholas Payton, ONSIND, Paloma Faith, Priests, prophets of rage, public enemy, pussy riot, rage against the machine, Red Wedge, release, review, riot grrrl, sleaford mods, SonicBoom Six, the undercover hippy, year.

by Chris Jarvis

It’s a common cliché that the quality and abundance of political and protest music is directly proportionate to the awfulness of the broader political landscape. The Vietnam War gave us the great American folk singers. The stagnation, unemployment and neoliberalism’s cusp of the 1970s bred punk. Thatcher’s Britain brought us the motley crew of rebels surrounding Red Wedge. The rapid and destructive spread of militant capitalism and imperialism at the end of the Cold War bore Rage Against the Machine. Apartheid in South Africa swelled a wonderful mix of pioneering sounds and firebrand resistance.

Unsurprisingly, 2017 was one of those years – a terrifying political context coalescing into a bumper crop of fantastic radical releases. So with a withering nod to the year that was and with a glint of hope in the sounds of revolution, here are the very best radical musical releases 2017 had to offer.
Continue Reading

HOLD A DANCE TO SOLIDARITY – LIGHTS DOWN, IN EVIL HOUR REVIEW

Posted on August 18, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged album review, angry, bandcamp, bitter, Blinding Ropes, Build it Up, Built on Our Backs, capitalism, Darlington, Divide and Conquer, Don't Wake Up, Enemy Within, free press, government, Grenfell, hardcore, In Evil Hour, journalism, Lights Down, Modern Detachment, MTM, music review, music that matters, My Excuse, neoliberalism, Paveway IV, petrol girls, poetry, political music, progress, protest song, provocative, punk, radical music, refused, revolution, rise against, We are the Lost.

by Chris Jarvis

Following up on the incendiary Built on Our Backs EP in 2015, Darlington’s darlings of hardcore In Evil Hour are back, this time with their second full-length release – Lights Down. In the age of an emboldened far right, intensified hawkishness in the international military arena, and revelations of the worst excesses of neoliberalism with the likes of the Grenfell disaster, Lights Down is a much needed and timely response.Continue Reading

WOMEN AND PUNK: SHAPING THE GENRE 40 YEARS ON

Posted on May 28, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Arts, Music That Matters and tagged #WomeninMusic, Ace Bushy Striptease, Adore Life, album, autonomads, Baby Ghosts, BME, British music, Built on Our Backs, Chekhov’s Hangnail, Colour Me Wednesday, DIY, EP, From Caplan to Belsize, Goldman’s Detective Agency, hardcore, hc, In Evil Hour, Kate Nash, Kerrang! Awards, King Prawn, Laila K, Leftover Crack, Lily Allen, LP, Martha, math-rock, media, Middle Ones, MSM, Muncie Girls, music, music journalism, music that matters, No Ditching, No Man No Right, Okinawa Picture Show, Perkie, petrol girls, pop punk, post-hardcore, punk, Radiator Hospital, Resolution 242, rock, Savages, Ska, ska punk, Sonic Book Six, split, T-Shirt Weather, Tellison, The F-Bomb, the king blues, The Selecter, Treading Water.

by Chris Jarvis

Last week, Music That Matters looked at the 40^th anniversary of punk and how our understanding of its history is typically one which erases the efforts and achievements of women musicians and people of colour. Today, the scene is often still seen as a male and white space, with punk shows frequently having male dominated crowds queuing up to see white men thrashing on guitars in shabby venues.

But it looks like things are changing. 2016 feels like it is becoming a rebirth of women in punk, and critically, as if it is women of colour who often are leading the way. More women are touring, more are getting bigger stages and longer sets, and more are getting the media coverage that they deserve. Among the nostalgic reflection, this year, dozens of punk albums will be released. Some will become instant classics, others will fade from memory as quickly as they came. Here are 10 bands leading the British punk scene this year, and the women that are making them shape the future of the genre.Continue Reading

PROGRESS – AN INTERVIEW WITH IN EVIL HOUR

Posted on January 24, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Arts, Music That Matters and tagged arts, hardcore, In Evil Hour, interview, melodic hardcore, music, music that matters, Propagandhi, punk, rise against, series, trade unions.

By Chris Jarvis

Darlington’s melodic hardcore punks are on the up. Off the back of a new EP, increased media coverage including a feature in Vive Le Rock magazine and The Mixed Tape, they now have tour dates in the diary with Ignite and UK Subs and they look to make 2016 their year. Inspiring comparisons with Rise Against, In Evil Hour combine the speed and aggression of modern hardcore with scathing attacks on the state of society of and politics. It is this latter feature of their music that led The Norwich Radical to talk to frontwoman and guitarist, Alice and Gareth about their political outlook, how it interplays with their musical outputs and what role they see this fusion having in shaping political change as part of our series Music That Matters.

In Evil Hour

20 BEST RADICAL MUSICAL RELEASES OF 2017

HOLD A DANCE TO SOLIDARITY – LIGHTS DOWN, IN EVIL HOUR REVIEW

WOMEN AND PUNK: SHAPING THE GENRE 40 YEARS ON

PROGRESS – AN INTERVIEW WITH IN EVIL HOUR

Support the Radical

Subscribe

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Support the Radical

Subscribe