Heavy Lungs

Formed during the early days of summer 2017, Bristol punk/noise rock band Heavy Lungs can’t help but feel like a product of their environment. “Living here, it’s hard not to see the scars the city can leave,” says George. “Like burning your bare leg skin on the exhaust of a motorbike—inconvenient and painful, but not without its equal share of humour and self reflection.”

Viewed through one pair of eyes, Bristol is a city that could tend to linger in darkness, but through those same eyes on a full night’s sleep it’s also a place that’s full of joy, occasional sunshine, students, struggling independent venues, pingers, mushrooms, acid, cocaine, weed, poppers, and good cheap mojitos from that new Cuban place, the one next to the constant street fire. Add that all together with a smattering of “F*CKTHE TORIES!” and you have the basic foundations of a music scene.

“Whether or not anyone can clean their act up and actually make music in these conditions is another story,” laughs George. “We give it a good go!”

Quickly writing and recording an ep and playing their first show within months of forming, Heavy Lungs have been a band hungry from the off. Honing their craft and strengthening their bond as a unit, the quartet have gone from strength to strength, even through a global pandemic.

If you’re wondering what being a part of their particular gang is like, they describe it as “something similar to dating three people at the same time. Daunting, exhausting, but not without some very serious privileges. We share a lot of mutual friends, interests, hates, postcodes, dietary restrictions, debts, UBERs, dreams, nightmares, vices and daddy issues.”

Touring extensively across the UK and Europe, with three EPs to their name released so far, Heavy Lungs are only just getting started with their plans for world domination. Attracting significant radio play already with fans including Steve Lamacq and Iggy Pop at BBC 6music, and sharing stages with the likes of METZ, TheeOh Sees, IDLES, JOHN, CROWS, and DITZ, the band have always been in good company.

Freshly signed to Alcopop! Records for 2023 and now sitting on the precipice of releasing their debut album All Gas No Brakes later this year, it’s a record that does exactly what it says on the tin—a fast, ferocious, and furiously fun ride.

“This album was the eventuality of us settling into more familiar sonic territory, whereas the string of EPs were the outcome of us changing, finding our feet, and experimenting,” says George of AGNB. “We’d write half an album and then Oli would buy a new amp or pedal that would alter our direction, or we’d verge into a different state that would warrant us to punctuate that change with the release of an EP.”

The band demoed half of the record in the spring of 2021 at Humm studios with Dom Mitchinson, which helped shape the odd synth sounds and melodies that fortify the album, before they linked up with Chris Fullard (“aka The Wizard”) to record the full set of songs proper in June 2021 at Holy Mountain Studios London, with Stanley Gravett engineering. “It was very collaborative with no single person taking ‘producer’ duty,”explains Oli, “It was just us all working on the tracks pretty swiftly over about 7 days. It was just a lot of amps—we had a wall of about 15 in the live room—and big drums with the end of the week being the six of us riling up Danny for his vocal takes.” ♫♪♪

Support comes from

BIG TROUSERS

BIG TROUSERS ARE A BRAND NEW TWO-PIECE BAND, DEADSET ON BRINGING THEIR GENRE-DEFINING POST-PUNK SOUND TO THE ROLLING MASSES. THE DUO, CONSISTING OF VOCALIST/DRUMMER HARRY GEEVES AND GUITARIST JACK DODD, SPENT THE SECOND HALF OF 2023 CONCOCTING RIFFS AND VOCAL FRY IN SECRET. WITH DEBUT SINGLE “TK MAXX SONG”, THE PAIR SURPRISED AUDEINCES WITH BIZARRE YET INTROSPECTIVE LYRICS AND ENORMOUS FUZZY GUITAR CHOPS. KNOWN FOR THEIR ATYPICAL LIVE SETUP AND HECTIC LIVE SHOWS, BIG TROUSERS ARE ROLLING OUT STUDIO MATERIAL AND GIGGING AROUND THE UK TO MAKE THIS YEAR THEIR BIGGEST YET. DEBUT SINGLE “TK MAXX SONG” IS OUT NOW!

Speaking of Witches

Speaking of Witches are an Alternative Rock band with strong Grunge and Blues influences, pushing out monolithically low riffs, deep thundering bass lines and machine gun precision driven drum beats. They have been roaming the Southampton circuit for 3 years before a hiatus and then releasing Luna Cycles in 2020, over the past 6 months they are already back in the studio recording and playing new tracks live, with another album to be seen in the next year or so. This band is perfect for fans of Queens of the Stoneage, Royal Blood, Tigercub and Foo fighters. With riffs this low you’ve got to come and see it for yourself. ♫♪♪