Leave the house? Seems quite likely with all of this going on.
GIG OF THE WEEK
Amyl & The Sniffers
If punk rock was a person, it’d be the kind that throws a brick through your window with a love note attached. Enter Amyl & The Sniffers, currently preparing to tear through the UK and Europe like a tornado in a charity shop, leaving nothing but sweaty grins and ringing ears in their wake.
Their new album ‘Cartoon Darkness’ is a record scrawled in permanent marker across the face of polite society. Recorded at the Foo Fighters’ 606 Studios in Los Angeles, the album lives up to its deliciously paradoxical title. “The future might end up being pretty dark,” muses vocalist Amy Taylor, “but it’s drawn with a pencil; it’s not set in stone.”
Taylor herself is a force of nature that makes said tornados look positively indecisive. Onstage, she’s a living embodiment of what would happen if pure energy decided to form a human shape and learn some power poses. She laughs, she snarls, she commands attention like a drill sergeant at a meditation retreat. On ‘Cartoon Darkness’, she’s taking aim at everything from climate apocalypse to AI overlords, throwing in a healthy dose of misogyny-skewering for good measure. Tracks like ‘Tiny Bikini’ and ‘U Should Not Be Doing That’ land somewhere between punk assault and stand-up comedy – if your comedian was also capable of starting a riot.
The evolution is real, though. Guitarist Declan Martens has apparently been sneaking melody into his guitar case alongside the usual arsenal of riffs and fury. ‘Bailing On Me’ even dares to flirt with acoustic territory – a move that in punk circles is usually considered somewhere between heresy and high treason. But here’s the thing: it works, like a charm wearing brass knuckles.
“I hate just throwing stuff at a wall and hoping it sticks,” admits bassist Gus Romer. Democracy in a punk band sounds about as natural as a moshpit at a chess tournament, but somehow they’ve made it work. Every track on ‘Cartoon Darkness’ feels fought for, each riff earned through the kind of debates that probably ended with someone chucking a chair (lovingly, of course).
In the hands of Amyl & The Sniffers, power isn’t about empty posturing – it’s about the freedom to be gloriously, unapologetically yourself, even if yourself happens to be the kind of person who thinks global warming might have an upside. “If global warming takes over and we all melt,” Amy observes with the kind of optimism that could survive a nuclear winter, “there’ll be some little fish that loves the heat and is just waiting for it all to get hotter.” (Climate scientists, feel free to fact-check that one at your leisure.)
Live, they’re less a band and more a natural disaster with a setlist. Their shows are the kind of events where even the security guards end up in the pit, where the line between audience and performer becomes as blurry as your vision after the second encore.
They’re at that perfect sweet spot now – big enough to fill the Roundhouse several times over, still feral enough to make it feel like a basement show that got out of hand. Fame hasn’t domesticated them; it’s just given them a bigger platform to be wonderfully unhinged from. The world might be going to hell in a handbasket, but at least Amyl & The Sniffers are here to provide the soundtrack.
National Stadium, Dublin, Ireland (5 Nov), O2 Academy, Glasgow, UK (6), NX, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK (7), Manchester Academy, Manchester, UK (9), O2 Academy, Birmingham, UK (10), O2 Academy, Bristol, UK (11), Roundhouse, London, UK (13), Roundhouse, London, UK (14), London, UK (15)
Conan Gray
Remember when Conan Gray was just a kid with a YouTube channel and dreams bigger than his hometown? Well, dear reader, that kid’s gone and found heaven – and now he’s taking it on tour. ‘Found Heaven’, his synth-soaked third album that’s been soundtracking our emotional breakdowns since April, is finally getting the live treatment it deserves.
Working with Max Martin (because if you’re going to evolve, you might as well get pop music’s final boss to help), Conan’s turned bedroom pop melancholy into stadium-sized synth euphoria. ‘Alley Rose’ and ‘Lonely Dancers’ have spent the last six months proving they’re not just songs – they’re coming-of-age movies compressed into three-minute bursts of feelings and filters. This tour promises to be what happens when someone figures out that growing up doesn’t have to mean growing boring.
O2 Apollo, Manchester, UK (7 Nov), O2 Apollo, Manchester, UK (8), London, UK (10)
Artemas & Willow Kayne
Some tour pairings just make perfect sense, even if that sense comes wrapped in beautiful chaos. Enter Artemas and Willow Kayne, two artists who, on paper, might look like they’re playing different games entirely – until you realize they’re both gleefully rewriting the rulebook.
Willow brings her genre-blending brilliance – imagine if the rave scene started reading philosophy and decided to make some points – while Artemas delivers the kind of pop-rock that makes you want to text your ex and then immediately delete their number. It’s a match that works precisely because both artists share that same fearless approach to pushing boundaries. When Willow declares she’s ‘Got This All Under Control’ and Artemas admits ‘i like the way you kiss me’, they’re both speaking the same language of unfiltered honesty, just through different megaphones.
Together, they’re co-conspirators in the kind of evening that promises to be both brilliant and beautifully unhinged. Think of it less as the perfect partnership between two of alternative pop’s most exciting voices. Your Instagram stories won’t know what hit them.
TV Studio, SWG3, Glasgow, UK (6 Nov), O2 Ritz, Manchester, UK (9), O2 Institute, Birmingham, UK (10), O2 Forum Kentish Town, London, UK (11)
Empress Of
Lorely Rodriguez (aka Empress Of) makes the kind of electronic pop that makes other electronic pop feel like it needs to go back to school. Her upcoming shows promise the kind of intimate performances where you might just have a spiritual awakening between the synth solos. Armed with her standout recent album ‘For Your Consideration’, Empress Of continues to prove that alt-pop can have both a brain and a heart – and they’re both working overtime.
Fabric, London, UK (7 Nov), YES Basement, Manchester, UK (9), King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, Glasgow, UK (10)
Rachel Chinouriri
If you caught Rachel Chinouriri at any point this year, you already know. If you didn’t, let us paint you a picture: sunshine incarnate takes human form and proceeds to make everyone’s day approximately 1000% better. Her debut album ‘What A Devastating Turn Of Events’ might sound like a bad day in diary form, but trust us – this is the kind of devastation you want to experience.
Her tour promises to be something special – intimate venues (she’s already sized up for next year), killer vocals, and the kind of songwriting that makes you want to hug a stranger (please ask permission first). It’s indie, it’s pop, it’s whatever genre “making people feel things” is. In an era of carefully curated personas, Rachel Chinouriri brings something refreshingly real to the table.
The Globe, Cardiff, UK (8 Nov), Gorilla, Manchester, UK (10), Queen Margaret Union (QMU), Glasgow, UK (12), O2 Academy2, Birmingham, UK (13), The Old Market, Hove, UK (14), O2 Forum Kentish Town, London, UK (16)
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