British band love-in

After buying three, yes three(!), music magazines yesterday - Kerrang!, Rocksound and NME (urgh, only for the G.Way interview) - I realised how fucking good British bands are right now. Thanks especially to RS for featuring so many of said Bri'ish music in the 'Exposure' section, the 2009 Readers Poll and on the free CD. (Oh and they have a lovely article on Emilie Autumn, so extra snaps for them!)


So, lets start with the British bands that I've mentioned before and been into for a while:

• Enter Shikari
• Lostprophets
• Bullet For My Valentine
• Placebo
• Funeral For A Friend
• My Passion
• Yashin
• The Horrors
• The Blackout
• Young Guns
  

True, I haven't been listening to all of them in recent months but some of them (ES, LPS, BFMV, FFAF) have helped me discover other bands and so on. Some of these other bands I've found are:

• Shadows Chasing Ghosts
• Deaf Havana
  
• Don Broco
  
• We Are The Ocean
  
• Kids In Glass Houses
• You Me At Six
• Tiger Please
• Twin Atlantic

Shocking that You Me At Six are up there, I know, since they're already onto their second album. BUT! I did like Save It For The Bedroom when it first came out, everyone else soon caught on, I lost interest blah, blah, blah. Now the couple of songs I have heard off 'Hold Me Down' (The Consequence & Underdog) are pretty damn good! I'm considering going out and buying that album sometime soon, as well as 'The Betrayed' by Lostprophets.

But as is expected, there's one band I really can't get into.


Bring Me The Horizon.


Admittedly, they're a pretty big band now, so good for them. But the music....eh, that's a completely different story altogether. I hated the first album, actual hatred I tell you! And I can only bear to listen to two songs off their second CD (Chelsea Smile and The Sadness Will Never End), but even then I find myself saying "What the fuck am I doing listening to this?" I think it's down to the fact that I can hear words coming from Oli Sykes' mouth in said two songs rather than a bunch of growls and whatever else. There was also a hatred for Oli too, but since that K! interview in October, it's more of an indifference towards him.

Anyway, British bands are all over atm. Look at the Kerrang! tour line-up, (for which my ticket finally came yesterday!)
We have, My Passion, Young Guns and The Blackout all on the same bill! Topped off by US band All Time Low. I think that's amazing, in the past couple of years it's been a 3:1 or 2:2 ratio of US:UK bands, take 2008 for example.

Coheed and Cambria - US
Madina Lake - US
Fightstar - UKCirca Survive - US

2009?
Mindless Self Indulgence - US
Dir En Grey - Japan... class them as non-UK
Bring Me The Horizon - UK
In Case Of Fire - UK
Black Tide - US

So this year it's nice to see the majority of bands playing are British rather than American. And let's see what Sean Smith and Gavin Butler from The Blackout said in the RS interview:

How do you think British alternative music has changed over the last five to ten years?
Sean: I think it's got a lot more commercial and I don't mean that in a bad way - it's a good thing. It's good to have something that can stand up to the rehashed American bullshit. On Warped Tour this year there were a lot of bands that were identical, there are so many that sound exactly the fucking same and I hate that kids love it when there are so many better, more original British bands.

Is British rock about to take over?
Gavin: We have a very strong foothold now, it's exciting to see what's going to happen.
Sean: Listening to the radio at the moment, for every American band played there's an equal or better British act. It's amazing.

And there we have it. Let the British band love-in commence!