Violent Soho - 'Everything Is A-OK'
After having wrestled with a decade and a half worth of demons across four albums; each crammed full of wry suspicion, ageing angst, flippant cheek, existential despair, plaintive hope, pie-eyed wonder and worry — along with metric tonnes of neck-snapping riffs — in 2020 Everything Is A-OK for Violent Soho.
Well, in reality, that’s never exactly true, is it? The story now goes that after several years of playing the part of “those kids who don’t seem to fit in anywhere” with their first two records (2008’s We Don’t Belong Here & 2010’s self-titled) Violent Soho finally announced themselves into the public’s consciousness with 2013’s Hungry Ghost. It came in a hail of riffs and ‘HELL F*CK YEAH’s scrawled on arms, desks, and bathroom walls the world over.
2016's WACO, meanwhile — despite earning a No.1 chart debut, ARIA awards, festival headlining spots and sold-out tours to the biggest crowds of their careers — came amid personal upheaval for drummer Michael Richards, bassist Luke Henery and guitarist James Tidswell.
But now with Everything Is A-OK, Mansfield’s favourite sons have drawn a metaphorical line in the sand: five albums into their career, equipped with a renewed self-confidence, they know not to follow a rule book written by other people. That’s what Everything Is A-OK is: a declaration that THIS is who Violent Soho are as a band. As musicians. As mates.
“It’s honest,” explains guitarist/vocalist Luke Boerdam. “It’s doesn’t claim to be anything it’s not: it’s apolitical, slacker, cynical, and trying to connect with people over a shared experience in pointing out society’s failures and the personal shit that follows.”
4ZZZ Top 20
1. Cable Ties - Far Enough
2. Holiday Party - Let Down (Single)
3. Baker Boy - Move (Single)
4. Sycco - Nicotine (Single)
5. Violent Soho - Everything Is A-OK
6. Good Boy - It Takes A Lot Of Skill To Milk A Mare
7. Superego - Nautilus (Album Of The Week)
8. Cloud Tangle - Kinds Of Sadness
9. Jeremy Neale - We Were Trying To Make It Out
10. Dicklord - It's Soooo Boring
Cloud Tangle: Kinds Of Sadness
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Thundercat: It Is What It Is
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The Dead Maggies: More Than Just Ghosts
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Es: Less Of Everything
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4ZZZ Top 20
1. Cable Ties - Far Enough
2. Screamfeeder - Start Again From Here (Single)
3. Adele & The Chandeliers - Something Good Is Happening (Single)
4. Tara Simmons - Show Me Spirit 'Til The End (Single)
5. Clea - Soft Blow To The Head (Single)
6. VOIID - Sour (Single)
7. Loulou - Gotta Get Better (Single)
8. Miiesha - Twisting Words (Single)
9. Sycco - Nicotine (Single)