The Omnipresence of Audio
And so, “Listening Habits Volume #4” – the new frontier. Well, not really or in fact at all. Welcome to a new series emanating from the reanimated Ear Nutrition. A collection of words pertaining to the human ability to create art by banging, picking and plucking various objects in sequence to form a coherent whole.
The modus operandi of this series is to celebrate the very nature of these sounds. From the legacy of the old onward to the fluidic, undulating nature of the contemporary and finally, to the frequent flashes of the emergent, all in reverence to the functional and irrevocable symbiosis of the three.
Succinctly put. The new, the old and the somewhere-in-between, communicated in written form whenever I can be bothered, as experienced by my very own lug’oles in effort to counter the mundanity-derived cognitive atrophy I’ve experienced since bining this off!
Exploding Head Syndrome – ‘Confessions’ (Single)
March 2026
Melodic Hardcore / Punk-Rock
Norway’s Exploding Head Syndrome have been consistently churning out bouts of melodiously inclined Hardcore Punk for years. Prior to ‘Confessions’, EHS, ahead of time, unleashed the ambitious yet expertly orchestrated ‘The Ballad of Denial’, which, intentionally or not, showcased a band confidently showing the sum of their parts for all to see in an existentially and societally apocalyptic seven minutes and twenty-one seconds. It is in these parts that, despite the band’s innately rhythmic and intellectually engaging Hardcore, EHS set off down a bridge comprised of their machinations for what would come next.
That next then came, explosively and high-octane and yet streamlined, driven and decidedly plastered with a deceptive and cathartic grin, resolutely lambasting those exercising the truest definition of hegemony and disregarding anyone below their fiscal watermark. The band’s tirade is infused and coated in the nods to the ’90s Skate Punk so infused into their tried and tested sound, though his time, amplified and accentuated to the fore and fronting the band’s ever-poignant yet drily delivered commentary on those for whom impunity is but one of their morning vitamins, washed down with ease exuded so piously by their adoring sycophants.
‘Well, the people will believe anything they are told – Just as long as it’s a quick fix to their problem – A shortcut to success’
With melodic leads and pseudo-playful chorus refrains cutting pace in a contrasting albeit momentary reprieve, EHS compositionally equate the bitter-sweet clarity from the increasingly obvious and oppressive reality that allows those in the band’s crosshairs to eschew justice, before falling back into a more recognisable Melodic Hardcore Punk as rapidly as their anger rises, falls, recharges and repeats.
The 8th May 2026 is the day that Deathbeds is set to release, and for those who like details, the album was produced by one Chris Cresswell of the Flat Water Hotline. Yes, that’s the one.
One Fall – Cut and Run (EP)
June 2025
Skate Punk / Melodic Hardcore / Punk-Rock
This isn’t the first time One Fall have been a subject within my seemingly endless babble and in those three years since that list, what a distance they have come. 2023’s Spine First! continued to foundationally cement the band beyond the flexible blueprint of their 2022 debut EP with its statement of intent, splicing classicist Pop-Punk with “technical” Skate Punk and infusing potently destructive Hardcore into a spirited amalgam denoting nothing but expertise.
Cut and Run, though reduced in numerical stature, is far from yearning for any strength. You are instantly thrown amidst a call to hold on and hold fast against an oppressive hegemony of idealised pseudo-purity, sold as a canvas pulled and dragged in whatever motion is beneficial to our puppeteers. ‘The Modern Age’ is tired of this backdrop, espousing rebellious proof that enough is enough, on an EP firing a salvo from quad-barrels primed with an unending and grinning supply of incendiary recalcitrance aimed at more than just one target.
As for the musical accoutrements, though darker, Cut and Run still gleams musically as it does with hope. The aforementioned, eponymous opener flanks its decrying chorus with an intense, slick Skate Punk/Melodic Hardcore hybrid that leaves you tearing through masory before the angular, reduced in tempo, but no less poignant ‘Lights Out (Love and Class Warfare)’ and ‘Keep Walking’ toy with the fluid legacy of Pop-Punk hooks to get their message across. Closing with the premium lesson in tempo, dynamic stylistic control that is ‘Harder Days’, the full gravity of how well these tracks are positioned in this running order becomes apparent. Track four is in itself a case for the One Fall MO as much as it is an integral part of a four-track EP showcasing the very same at its (current) zenith.
If you’re at Manchester Punk Festival, then you know what to do. It’s also worth noting that some very integral friends of the band, Oh The Humanity! (Volume #1), feature on this release and will also be appearing on the same day and indeed stage as One Fall at said festival. What a time to be alive!
Gouge Away – ‘Figurine’ (Single)
March 2026/May 2026*
Post-Hardcore / Alternative Rock
Upon finally feeling motivated to do another volume of “Listening Habits”, I wanted to cover this band’s third LP, Deep Sage. However, unbelievably, the band had the sheer gall and audacity to infringe on the plans of a small, partially resurrected and nigh-on entirely unknown webzine-blog-mess-thing and release NEW MUSIC. I forgive them, and it’s only fitting now to ascertain why! – The masterful Deep Sage can wait, for now.
Though admittedly late to Gouge Away, what an experience it’s been moving through their catalogue at pace with their fluid cascade through the somehow still tumultuous torrent that is being in a Hardcore band deciding to diversify sonically. Gouge Away aren’t the first and I hope they’re not the last in a line of contemporary bands expanding their horizons beyond the “norm” and yet maintaining both appeal and fervour.
Concerning the likes of social survival and people-pleasing (but also an air of the triumphant inverse), ‘Figurine’ further proliferates the keen edge for narrative storytelling now so integral to the Gouge Away model. Musically, the band cycles through blasts of intense and cathartic Post-Hardcore, either side of an undulating motion, itself rocking back and forth on the cusp of further combustion. You can feel the frustration on ‘Figurine’, and this amplified shift and contrast between that and the comparatively dulcet verse emulate the emotion behind it, in turn self-perpetuating a freneticism that is highly addictive.
Now on Run For Cover Records, the band will be releasing a 7″ for ‘Figurine’ in May 2026, which will come with a vinyl-exclusive cover of the Grauzone track, ‘Eisbär’. How nice.
Our Lives In Cinema – Eat Your Feelings
November 2024
Pop-Punk / Emo / Post-Hardcore
This one has been on the list for a while, which, in some apposite way, echoes the journey Our Lives In Cinema undertook through the narratives of their own cinematic universe to bring this debut full-length to its existential fruition. Existential being the operative word there, as well as a macro of this eleven-track ‘cosm.
Soaking themselves in an adoration of archival Pop-Punk, Emo and finally, the Post-Hardcore spectrum, the band have trodden amorphously through it all in careful balance. Concisely said, OLIC’s history is as toasted as their contemporary is confident. For the deep divers, their bandcamp is the very trove to catalogue and follow their sonic cartography toward Eat Your Feelings. However, with time being what it is, OLIC’s (current) magnum opus is what warrants attention.
At times cryptic and at others overtly championing the (quite possibly) cryptid entity known as contentedness, Eat Your Feelings is comfortably brash, eschewing all the assumed, Pavlovian attributes and opinions that flood to mind with the words “Pop-Punk” and “Emo” are even-but considered. EYF is poppy, it is spewing from a chest cavity willingly, but doing so backed with life experience and sardonicism, intelligently cognisant of itself and using it as some sort of auto-generative, Emo-bio-fuel.
And as for the instrumental backing, well, given how well this album has been produced and mastered, it “sings” just as triumphantly in its own right.
Thousand Oaks – Nightmare Fuel (EP/7″)
March 2025
Skate Punk / Melodic Hardcore
Although Thousand Oaks are now well on the way to their next release, expediently atop the latest single ‘Gravity’s Inquisition And The Silent Obedience Of The Living’ – now is a time as good as any to backtrack and revise 2025’s absolute barrage of evocative and melody-driven precision that is Nightmare Fuel.
On this EP, Thousand Oaks market their innate ability to simultaneously equate their previous work’s calibre and consistency, as they delicately refine it and push onward with their considered yet breakneck trajectory. A process orchestrated concurrently, mid-air and blown from the water, entirely subject to the velocity of whatever thought-provoking and instrumentally enthralling strike is their most recent. Would it be fitting to entitle this process as “The Thousand Oaks Effect”? – perhaps, but I’m not the one in the business of coining anything people actually give a shit about. What I can say, however, is that though my own words may well conjure some (abstract) imagery, it descends weightfully into banality when in direct comparison to what this band’s collective might can and does muster on Nightmare Fuel.
Sonically, “anthemic” is an adjective rendered preliminary at best, perched on the cliff-edge of a peninsula facing the comparatively voluminous ocean-scape of emotional resonance felt throughout these four tracks in nine minutes. ‘The Icebergian’ sets this tone as its will to pursue its dreams is tested by the apparent ubiquity of insurmountable odds, and yet, it stands resolute against the very nightmare fuel the EP is beset by. Thousand Oaks levy an adrenalised sonic defiance on this release, thematically antithetical to this woe and soundtracked by the equally fervent and characteristically brilliant Skate Punk and Melodic Hardcore they exact so well.
I bet you were expecting ‘The Icebergian’, weren’t you? Instead, here’s one about patriotism, which is (actualised) nightmare fuel enough these days.
“Time after time a veil has been draped over the face of reason in the name of patriotism”
Listening Habits Volume #4, done.
More at some stage when my ‘Unnecessarily complicated word-bank account’ has re-filled.
