What’s New In Rock - December 2024
Your monthly round up of the rock world, featuring festival announcements, spoof award shows, and new releases.
Poppy finds her head for the cover of Revolver’s Artist of the Year 2024, photographed by @anelrivz on Instagram, November 2024 © All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.
Last Month’s WNIR mused that Green Day, Iron Maiden, Sleep Token and Electric Callboy may be on the card for Download 2025 when the lineup dropped on November 12th - and 2/4 were not only correct but the headliners. Sleep Token in particular has divided the community, with their fast rise on the scene leaving some to wonder where they’ve come from and the rest to wonder where those wondering have been in the last year or so. Also headlining are resurgent classic Nu-Metal band Korn, while the main supports include Weezer (sigh), Bullet for my Valentine and Spiritbox. This Download lineup marks a response to the criticism of Download that they were in a classic rock and metal rut, cycling through the same headliners, but now the critique is that the bands aren’t heavy enough! For what it’s worth the diversification of the festival is a good thing as well as the injection of the newer heavyweights such as Sleep Token and Spiritbox alongside the good old nostalgia his like The Darkness and McFly; if only the rock and metal community could leave behind the band that wrote a whole album about trying to turn a lesbian.
In the gossip, fans and commentators have noticed that Liquid Death has been removed from all sponsorship of the festival after two years being the event’s lead sponsor. This has been done without comment, with a look at the teaser material showing that they had still been a part of the festival until at least the beginning of November. Download Festival has not yet announced their lead sponsor for this year, but hopefully some sleuthing will let us know why the sparkling water company has completely pulled out of the financial side.
Further Up England, Slam Dunk Festival announced a stacked lineup for May 2025 on 8th November 2024. With metalcore legends A Day To Remember making their debut at Temple Newsham and Hatfield at the top of the alphabetical roster. It’s hard to name all the draws for SDF25 without listing the whole lineup (so here it is): Alkaline Trio, Less Than Jake, Save Ferris and Streetlight Manifesto for the millennials, Neck Deep, Hot Mulligan and Knuckle Puck for the pop punk revivalists and the likes of Electric Callboy, Hot milk and Malevolence for the modern scene enjoyers. The only worry for the Slam Dunk North goers will be if the Temple Newsham Hill will be able to take the footfall this year after the mudslides of 2024; it means a lot to us, but if it’s time to move to a different field we’ll have to kick up the roots for bigger pastures.
In Touring news, My Chemical Romance announced a massive Black Parade US tour in full concept, complete with teaser videos and dropping lore about the environment in which the Black Parade band operates. The description of the skit with the dates revealed describes the takeover of a general of the dictatorship in which The Black Parade live who have finally offered the group a pardon and permission to reform as the sects national band. With a storyline leading beautifully from the slow rebuilding setpieces of the reunion tour, a story established and unexplained quotation marks around “Long Live” in the name of the US tour, this has led many to speculate on MCR5 - surely they wouldn’t spin all this to not give us a sequel at the end of the tour? Nevertheless, the New Jersey outfit are taking a stacked lineup of support acts crossing every decade of their supremacy: 100Gecs, Thursday, Death Cab for Cutie, Alice Cooper, Evanescence, and Wallows among others for a stadium experience that all of us outside of the US would debate selling a kidney for - just me?
Meanwhile, Neck Deep and State Champs announced a dream joint headliner for the Australian Leg of the Dumbstruck Dumbf*ck tour commencing next April, and Electric Callboy announced the European leg of their world tour for 2025 and 2026. The electro metal crew will be hopping all over Europe starting November next year, covering 11 countries on the continent including Germany, Spain and countries in scandinavia.
Best in New Music
The drops of the month included New York pop punkers State Champs gifting their self-titled album on November 8th. Serving their classic blend of lovelorn and jaded lyrics on the backdrop of beautiful guitar melodies and exemplary drumming, State Champs continue to cement themselves as part of the rock furniture and continue their tenure as personal GOAT.
Also on November 8th, Deijuvhs dropped his newest single LOTUS, elevating emo rap to nu-metal status with their mix of electric beats and grungy soundscapes before breaking it down on a simple trap beat. We’ve not heard much from Deijuvhs this year on the album front (apart from a tease on tiktok a few days ago), but there has been a steady stream of singles in 2023 and 2024 to keep fans anticipated for when the next feature length will come - when he takes a break from running around London in the middle of the night harassing strangers, that is.
In Metalcore, up and comers Mallavora released their latest EP on November 20th called Echoes. A band that has focused on creating accessible spaces, their latest project covers themes of identity and neurodiversity over 4 tracks that take their influence from a variety of subgenres as well as cultural pieces from the frontwoman’s middle eastern background.
In The Culture
The AP not MAs is back for its 5th year in 2024 and bigger than ever! Valerie of @valeriesvoice on tiktok announced the nominees for each of the 16 categories of the event, covering all parts of the scene from its headline scandals to the weirdest merch items. It’s been a good year for nominations I Don’t Know How But They Found Me, racking up 5 nominations, Fall Out Boy gaining 6, and of course Waterparks gaining 6 additional nominations outside of their dedicated category. The Awards ceremony will take place on December 6th with awards presented by Stand Atlantic, Honey Revenge and As It Is, I’m sure it will be an evening of tomfoolery fit for the chronically online among us.
In more serious news, on November 24th the longest serving My Chemical Romance drummer Bob Bryar was found deceased in his home having been last seen on November 4th. Police apparently reported no foul play as none of his items or weapons had been taken from the home, but Bryar was in a badly decomposed state, authorities allegedly told TMZ. His dogs have since been removed from the home.
Bryar joined My Chemical Romance after working in the sound crew for former close colleagues The Used in 2004, and would write the drumlines in seminal 2006 album The Black Parade as well as some of the tracks in 2010’s Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, but departed the band that year then retired from music all together in 2014. Sentiments about Bryar’s death have been contested, with some wishing for space to mourn in the public space, while others have brought up his publicly hateful views and claim hypocrisy on those who will advocate against racism and transphobia yet offer their respects and sadness when it comes to a former member of their favourite bands. This situation has brought to light questions of how the public eye works - despite spending his last 10 years of life as a non-celebrity, in death he has been elevated once more to the public consciousness and the value of people’s mourning has been treated as such. Is piping off in public whether you’re mourning or critiquing appropriate in the hours after such an announcement? How much grace do we give for those who knew Bob Bryar the person off screen, rather than his online reputation?
In any case, I would like to offer condolences to his family at this time and hope they get the answers they seek, and that the dogs he loved are safe and well.
“It is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to Bob Bryar, our former bandmate and an important part of the history of My Chemical Romance. We send our deepest condolences to his friends and family at this time. May he rest in peace.” @mychemicalromance © All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.
My Chemical Romance guitarist Frank Iero shares photos of him and the former drummer to his instagram along with a eulogy to his late bandmate, December 2024 via @frankieromustdie on IG © All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.
Finally, Knocked Loose and Poppy made hardcore history at the end of this month when they performed single ‘Suffocate’ on the Jimmy Kimmel Show on the 26th of November. A delightfully odd ordeal when announced, both band and fans pulled no punches in this performance with a pyro display, healthy looking mosh pit and Bryan Garris hitting a pig squeal on national television. Taking to Instagram after the set, Garris shared his thanks for being able to get the Kentucky outfit into “places where [they] don’t fit” and shared a moment where he and guitarist/backup vocalist Isaac Hale were walking through pictures of guests on the show and remembered starting the band in Hale’s garage as they made their way to the stage. There had been some backlash from the non-rock community asking for Kimmel to apologise for the performance - but not only do they not need one, those of us into hardcore are chuckling at the assumption that their kids will be adding some new songs to their playlist on the way home in the next couple of weeks.
