2011: RBF/New Riot UK/European dates
Posted by jamie on Jan 9, 2011
New Riot will play first on Reel Big Fish’s UK and European jaunt with Suburban Legends next month. Tickets are here.
Free CDs: New Riot
Posted by jamie on Nov 9, 2010
We spotted Tommy T from New Riot giving out promo CDs for their album Riot.Sleep.Repeat after the Less Than Jake show in Kentish Town last night. Keep your eyes peeled for a big mohawk and see if you can grab yourself a copy.
New Riot will join the tour as support for a few dates, and play their own headline tour afterwards. See the dates in full here.
Tour dates: NewRiot
Posted by jamie on Nov 4, 2010
New Riot have added a giant list of tour dates. See the whole lot here.
December 2010:
1st - Meze, Newport
3rd - Winchester Gate, Salisbury
4th - Chords, Poole
5th - Legion, Ramsgate
6th - Stereo, York
7th - Cockpit, Leeds
8th - Maze, Nottingham
9th - Asylum - Birmingham
Less Than Jake: MEGA support acts for UK November tour
Posted by jamie on Sep 8, 2010
As well as taking We Are the Union and Zebrahead on the UK shows in Novemeber, Less Than Jake have added “some of our favorite local bands” to the shows. Remember to breathe, because the list they’ve put together is absolutely killer.
That list includes the Skints, the Arteries, Mouthwash, This Contrast Kills, New Riot and Kids Can’t Fly.
Tickets are available now. Less Than Jake will take Sonic Boom Six from Manchester and Zebrahead on tour across mainland Europe.
New Riot headline show
Posted by jamie on Aug 12, 2010
New Riot have a new London headline show. It’s at the Water Rats. Pre-order is here.
New Riot: lots of shows
Posted by chips on Jul 26, 2010
In better news, New Riot have posted shows throughout August, September and October. Heroes.
New Riot: Riot.Sleep.Repeat
Posted by jamie on Jul 14, 2010
New Riot
Riot.Sleep.Repeat (self-released)
13th July 2010
Jamie
Soon after the Easter weekend I sat hunched up on the sofa to review Robb Blake’s latest record. A quick check says that that was the 5th of April, and, alarmingly I haven’t reviewed a full album since. There’s good and bad reasons for that: the arrival of a heatwave of scarily humungous proportions and a lot of excellent live shows to go to and write about have surely got in the way. All the same, that’s a freakishly long time. The silver lining is that I’ve had an extra long time to get familiar with one of the year’s hottest releases.
New Riot’s Riot.Sleep.Repeat is as refreshingly clean and clear on the ear as it is jagged and frustrating for your spell checker: it’s packed with party-starting tunes jammed with hooks, and so deliriously catchy it’ll slap a giant, stupid grin on your face and, in seconds, have your feet running in circles and your hands and arms flying around furiously.
So endearing in its refreshing, honest, unpretentious party-starting, this record is an absolute joy and a welcome return, in many ways to the days when liking ska and punk together was automatically cool and making good, honest party tunes for its own sake wasn’t some kind of crime that would have fashionably cynical scenesters moaning about people wanting to have fun.
It’s all too easy to pretend to like or to dislike something just to look hip, but, at the end of the day, you’re not a punk if you want to do that, so you’re probably in the wrong scene. If you’re still reading, Riot.Sleep.Repeat is the soundtrack to your summer. It’s been out for ages now, and most of you will have bought it, but, ever since I’ve had it, I’ve been hooked on this record. It’s stupidly addictive and never fails to slap a smile over my face.
It starts gently, Andy B picking out a Hoppus-style bassline that could have come from any of the most enjoyable pop-punk songs from back in the day. It lasts for all of fifteen seconds, guitars joining as we go, before the drums and Tommy T’s lead vocal crash in and kick the record off with a bang. Well, with a scream, actually. The opener, Feel the Burn, was on the band’s first EP, 2009’s Blood, Sweat and Beers, is an instant hit, loaded with gang vocals, horn riffs, and healthy portion of snare drum as well. It comes out at a million miles an hour sets the exhilarating pace that runs through the whole record.
It’s in Punk Radio, though that the record really comes in to its own. The pedigree these guys have, and the years they all spent playing in Fandangle long ago proved their undoubted ability to push all the right buttons when writing killer pit and party songs. In this song, though, it becomes clear that they have also clearly honed a loyalty to their own fans and an appreciation of what we like to get sweaty to.
Punk Radio starts out as big, dirty, rock song, guitars and drums building to a crescendo before a big, throaty grunt ushers in a different, more recognisably punk/ska sound, upstrokes, lyrics in rhyming couplets and answered by a cute little horn part that’s perfect for pointing your fingers in the air. Lyrically, the words are an anthem for a part of the punk scene that was massive not so log ago, and for that reason now feels relatively overlooked. The mood is defiant, and the rhymes, rhythms and all-around punch in the hooks on show mean it’s perfect for chanting along to, and, at the same time, affirming your identity. “Give it a twist with a little horny brass / All you scene kids can kiss my ass” is a particular favourite, but “We got reggae, we got fucking rap, but the ska punk boy’s on the fucking comeback” is all the more impassioned.
While I’m on it, a tribute to one of the scene’s most loyal fanbases is touching and very welcome. “And if you’re listening then thank you so much / If you like it, we will write it” is notably sincere, but just another example of a theme that stands out throughout the track and, to an extent, the record as a whole. To an extent, of course, the very existence of Riot.Sleep.Repeat is testament to the devotion that this band and their followers have for each other. Given all that’s meant to have happened, there must have been times when this might not have happened.
We move on, and Another Point of View, Guilty Pleasures and Nothing to Lose are gems, big, ballsy singalongs packed with uplifting horn parts and thoroughly skankable, catchy basslines underpinning riffs, power chords and upstrokes alike.
Title track Riot.Sleep.Repeat is not quite so quick, but just as much fun: it’s rhyming chorus barked, almost rapped, over the horn section and picked out nicely by the other lads on gang vocals.
Lucky Strike is also a little gentler, a love song, but still very much a pop song, and one with all the right ingredients. It’s a quiet moment, but a lovely, simple little song and nice and danceable. Devil Alive, that comes next, is probably the darkest track on the record: as a contrast to Lucky Strike, it’s also about a girl, but this one’s fake, and the tone is much angrier. The song is all guitars and lower, bluesy horn parts. Think of some of the jazz-influenced Sublime songs, and you’re pretty close. Tommy T takes on a Nowell-esque tone to his voice, even. It’s very close to Wrong Way, or Date Rape, for example, and has a great little guitar solo thrown in for good measure.
After this, How Long, is a giddy skip back to the up-tempo party songs we saw earlier on in the record. It’s short (1:48) and, a cute little sax solo aside, is based around one short, sweet, little hook. Days Like These goes the distance and climbs back to the giddy heights that we saw at the very start of the album and that are symptomatic of the record as a whole. It’s similar in style and has all the same ingredients: another sure-fire hit that’s great to party to. Like the last song, Break Free, it’s the sound of a very good band who know their sound and their fans very well, who write great pop songs, and who just want to have fun and know how to do it. There are variations on the usual theme, for sure, but Riot.Sleep.Repeat is essentially the sound of New Riot in hit-machine mode, writing party-starting tunes to keep their fans happy. And fair play to them for that.
Favourites:
Guilty Pleasures
Nothing to Lose
Lucky Strike
Devil Alive
How Long
New [spunge dates]
Posted by chips on Mar 3, 2010
New [spunge] dates are out. Check the venuw carefully, as there are two tours one after another.
On the earlier dates [spunge] are supported by New Riot. After that they’ll be opening for the Dropkick Murphys and Face to Face.
So you’ve got no excuses and I’ll see you down the front.
HEADLINE TOUR 2010
12th March @ Bristol 02 Academy
Support from New Riot
13th March @ Tunbridge Wells Forum
Support from New Riot
14th March @ Norwich Waterfront
Support from New Riot
15th March @ Reading SUB89
Support from New Riot
18th March @ Winchester Railway
Support from New Riot
19th March @ The Old Bell, Derby
Support from New Riot
20th March @ Crauford Arms, Milton Keynes
Supports: “local bands” (TBC)
21st March @ Camberley Agincourt
Support from New Riot
SUPPORT TOUR 2010
supporting Dropkick Murphys
12th April @ Glasgow Barrowlands
Dropkick Murphys - Face to Face - [spunge]
13th April @ Newcastle Academy
Dropkick Murphys - Face to Face - [spunge]
14th April @ Leeds Academy
Dropkick Murphys - Face to Face - [spunge]
15th April @ Manchester Academy
Dropkick Murphys - Face to Face - [spunge]
16th April @ Birmingham Academy
Dropkick Murphys - Face to Face - [spunge]
17th April @ Nottingham Rock City
Dropkick Murphys - Face to Face - [spunge]
18th April @ London Brixton Academy
Dropkick Murphys - Face to Face - [spunge]
New Riot album
Posted by chips on Feb 13, 2010
New Riot expect their first full-length album to be on available 11th March. They’ll be playing it from start to finish at 12 Bar in Swindon on that day (entry £3) “in preparation for the [spunge] tour..”.
Yesh.
New Riot: cheeky studio pictures
Posted by chips on Jan 11, 2010
Me seen these pictures of the New Riot making the album when me looking on facebook. Have a peek here.
