Run For Cover US Vinyl & CDs

Review: Advance Base makes is the name given to melancholic electronic story songs made by US indie label owner and musician Owen Ashworth. Ashworth can sing the phonebook and has mastered the art of cutting all the fat from his words to deliver succinct, compelling stories to lo-fi Daniel Johnston-ish music. ‘The Year I Lived In Richmond’ doesn’t colour anything in metaphor and it’s a frank tale about a woman who had stabbed a burglar and his experience living close to it. The album title is as apt as could be. Meanwhile, ‘How You Got Your Picture on the Wall’ is heartbreaking in its delivery and has a clever twist at the end. Ashworth under his moniker Advance Base is an outsider hero with a level of artistry and songwriting that's quite rare to find. Absolutely stunning.

Review: Death Is Nothing To Us has been a long time coming, and in many ways represents pinnacle moment in the Fiddlehead story. In 2010, Pat Flynn, who some knew though Have Heart, lost a father who left behind his grief-stricken mother. Faced with the profound impact death can have on those forced to pick up the pieces, and feeling incapable of helping, this emotional period directly informed Fiddlehead's 2018 debut, Springtime & The Blind. A little later, Flynn's first child came into the world, and the sadness that comes with having a kid but no father to introduce them to was distilled into 2021's follow up, Between The Richness. Now, two years on, Death Is Nothing To Us rounds off the fatalistic trilogy, a rousing journey from bleak depression to strength, which touches on ideas from sleeping off trauma to leaning on friends. The result is every bit the right way to conclude this odyssey - leaving us under no illusions as to how difficult life can be, but how important it is to acknowledge when it's there, all delivered through equally vital hardcore anthems.

Review: Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania based melodic hardcore outfit One Step Closer have been left holding the keys to a burdensome legacy. Hailing from the same small town in middle America as emo-hardcore legends Title Fight, there's a lingering sense all eyes in the scene have been slyly pointed at the group since the release of their exceptional debut album This Place You Know in 2021, which they would follow up with last year's surprise Songs For The Willow EP. Where that small batch of tracks indicated a similar creative path to the aforementioned Title Fight with its newfound embracing of melodious shoegazing and melancholic composition, their highly anticipated sophomore LP All You Embrace appears set to marry both the raw and subdued, vicious and vulnerable qualities of their poignant angst-riddled emo-tinged grungecore into one unified cohesion of sincere, gritty, genuine alternative rock.

Review: Dense, brooding riffs, macro-melodic tidal waves... Pelican's signature blend of post-metal-sludge is a piscine gulping of tsnuami-sound. Formed in the proverbially thalassic sonic expanse of Chicago, this band flocked together in 2000 at the core whim of guitarists Trevor Shelley de Brauw and Laurent Schroeder-Lebec. Radically, Pelican initially described their approach to music creation as "rule-free", mirroring the perception of 1990s Chicago as a barbaric "free-for-all" in which an empty beaker of potential was confronted, and partially refilled, by the oceanic outpouring that was experimental post-rock. Long after their debut Australasia (2003) and career-migrations such as City Of Echoes and Arktika, came Flickering Resonance (2022), a record which was deemed to reflect a more "humanistic side of the band." The bleak landscapes evoked on 'Cascading Crescent' and 'Indelible' are no discourager for this band; they still maintain cavalcades of riffing stridencies and amphibious drumming.

Review: Following on from the reissue of Rival Schools' first record, Run For Cover turns its attention to the band's landmark 2011 studio LP, which took two years to be released after the original recording sessions finished and a staggering ten years after the inaugural long player, United By Fate, had landed. Rooted in emo, pop rock, and post-hardcore, the main difference between episodes one and two was the comparatively lighter moods on the second, and an absence of distortion. In many ways, a more commercially-minded outing, at the time critics lauded Pedals for its comparative maturity, with many trumpeting the return as being slicker, more self-assured and altogether more grown up. Nevertheless, the tracks still tear from the blocks with the energy of youth and there's no denying these songs are the result of musicians with a real ear for writing infectious hooks.

Review: Rival Schools' Found is a compelling collection of rarities, demos and alternate takes, compiled during the years following the release of their 2001 debut, United By Fate. Initially released over a decade ago, the band has collaborated with Run For Cover Records to reissue this collection on limited-edition vinyl, timed alongside the reissue of their 2011 album Pedals. This version of Found is particularly special, with a rare yellow vinyl edition limited to just 200 copies. Found offers eleven tracks that showcase the band's musical experimentation and evolution during the decade between their debut and Pedals. Led by Walter Schreifels, a pivotal figure in the hardcore scene through his work with Youth of Today, Gorilla Biscuits, and Quicksand, Rival Schools also features members Ian Love, Cache Tolman, and Sammy Siegler, whose other projects include Iceburn, CIV, and Glassjaw. Found seamlessly fits into Rival Schools' discography, bridging the post-hardcore sound of their debut with hints of the more melodic direction they would later explore. Tracks like 'Reaching Out' and 'Paranoid Detectives' still pulse with the intensity and urgency reminiscent of Schreifels' earlier days, while songs like 'Tell It All To Me' reveal a growing emotional depth within the band's sound. Found remains a significant piece of Rival Schools' unique trajectory, capturing a moment in time that fans will find both nostalgic and rewarding.