Rochdale Music Stories Presents: Kenion Street (Rochdale Music Stories) Limited Edition Vinyl Available 14th March Rochdale Music Stories presents Kenion Street is a new compilation celebrating the music recorded at Cargo and Suite 16 between 1977-2001. Between 1977-2001, Rochdale was home to Cargo Studios, later Suite 16 on Kenion Street, where trailblazing artists like The […]
The post Rochdale Music Stories Presents: Kenion Street – Album Launch appeared first on Louder Than War.
Hold me in contempt, for there is nothing that I do to please
I put myself on trial, I let my judgment bring me to my knees
There are days when the mind turns magistrate, when every small failure is entered into the record, and every private doubt returns in a powdered wig to prosecute the self all over again. You replay the evidence, rehearse the apology, write the sentence before anyone else has spoken. That is the suffocating chamber Berlin post-punk outfit Agatha Is Dead! enters with “Courtroom Drama,” their new single, a fierce, self-lacerating dispatch that arrives with the announcement of their debut album Concrete, due out on September 11th via Duchess Box Records.
Lyrically, Courtroom Drama unfolds as an internal trial, suffocating in its own logic, tracing the slow collapse that comes from taking on all responsibility until perspective erodes and certainty dissolves. Here, guilt becomes instinctive rather than earned, confession a coping mechanism rather than truth. Shaped by inherited judgments and internalised authority, the track exists in a space where dissenting voices are muted, and the trial never adjourns. Bleak yet piercingly intimate, it captures the exhaustion of living under constant self-surveillance, asking what remains of identity when judgment and self-imposed moral perfectionism replace understanding.
Musically, the song is pure post-punk: thick, propulsive basslines move like quick footsteps heralding impending judgment; angular guitars slash through the mix; and the drums march with taut, anxious precision. The riffs are dirgeful, suspenseful, and cinematic, while the icy guitar solo two-thirds in is one any gothic rock band would be proud to claim. Vocally, Agatha Is Dead! strike a compelling balance between smouldering contemporary intensity and bruised theatricality, calling to mind PJ Harvey and Whispering Sons. The chilling, forceful refrain of “guilty as charged” is set against the more resigned, inward mantra of “I’ve got no alibi,” augmenting the song’s cruel emotional tug-of-war.
The lyric video heightens that tension with a stark, confrontational visual concept: two mirrored black silhouettes face one another across a central microphone, suspended against a blood-red backdrop, while massive white lowercase lyrics strike the frame like evidence entered into the record. The symmetry suggests an interrogation staged inside a divided self, part deposition, part confession, part psychic standoff. As courtroom language like gavel, jury, deposition, and wrong confessions flashes across the screen, the clip becomes less a conventional lyric video than a ritual of self-prosecution, with no judge in sight beyond the one already living inside the speaker’s skull.
Watch Courtroom Drama below:
Formed during the lockdown winter of 2021, Agatha Is Dead! began as a post-punk experiment between longtime friends Lilly and Noah, who first made music together during their school years. Drawing from Joy Division, The Cure, Molchat Doma, and Fontaines D.C., their sound is defined by urgency, tension, and atmosphere. The addition of drummer Joey Ramone Hansen, bringing a grunge and pop-punk bite, alongside Arthur on bass, completed the lineup. After their first shows in 2022, the band quickly established themselves within Berlin’s underground scene.
In 2025, Agatha Is Dead! signed to Duchess Box Records and released their EP order, before selling out a run of headline shows on their first tour, including a 500-capacity performance at Lido Berlin that sold out four months in advance. With “Courtroom Drama,” the band sharpen their claustrophobic intensity still further, marking a decisive step toward one of Berlin’s most compelling new post-punk statements.
Agatha Is Dead! will make their US live debut at SXSW beginning on March 12th. Tickets are already on sale for their 25th February 2027 show at SO36 Berlin, their biggest headline show to date.
The release of Courtroom Drama lands just ahead of the band’s first shows in the United States at SXSW, with more tour news to follow.
Pre-save / stream “Courtroom Drama” here:
Tour Dates
SXSW
2026
2027
Follow Agatha Is Dead!:
The post “Guilty as Charged!” — Berlin Post-Punk Outfit Agatha is Dead! Bring Down the Gavel With “Courtroom Drama” appeared first on Post-Punk.com.
HELLBOUND II isn’t just another metal festival — it’s a floating heavy music cruise paradise at sea. For four nights aboard Carnival Splendor, you’re not just watching your favourite bands from the crowd — you’re on the same ship, sharing the same experience, living the chaos on holiday with these bands… together. An immersive VIP […]
Anneke Van Giersbergen has announced her new solo EP La Mort, due for digital release on 27 March 2026, with a Record Store Day exclusive vinyl edition to follow on 18 April. The four-track release is the second chapter in her triptych La Vie, La Mort, L’Amour.
The news arrives during a year of renewed attention around The Gathering, following sold-out reunion shows marking the 30th anniversary of Mandylion. While preparing for further appearances with her former bandmates in 2026, Anneke has continued work on deeply personal material shaped by love, loss and grief after the deaths of both her parents within two months of each other.
First single Red Sky is out now.
“Not every song on La Mort is literally about death,” Anneke says. “Writing doesn’t follow rules like that, and I’m glad it doesn’t. Sail Towards The Sun, however, is about saying goodbye to my father. He once built his own seaworthy sailboat, and we spent many family holidays on the water. That memory lives very close to my heart.”
1. Fade In Fade Out
2. Handle Me With Care
3. Red Sky
4. Sail Towards The Sun
La Mort was recorded with Anneke’s live band, capturing an organic sound. The line-up features Anneke van Giersbergen on vocals and guitar, Allie Summers on backing vocals, Camilla van der Kooij on violin and viola, Edward Capel on reed instruments, Gijs Coolen on guitars, Matthias van Beek on guitars and backing vocals, Rob Snijders on drums, Roel Blommers on bass, and Thijs Schrijnemakers on keyboards.
Excitement for Wacken Open Air is ramping up. Last week’s announcement for W:O:A’s “Wasted Wednesday” kicked things off. Now 49 more bands have been announced for this year’s anniversary edition! The festival week stars with a bone-crushing party on Wednesday, as Sacred Steel, The Troops of Doom, Phantom, Poison the Preacher, Crypt Sermon, Battlecreek and […]The thrill of entering Brixton Academy to the sound of The Bouncing Souls’ ‘Private Radio’ is unmatched, and that’s what Less Than Jake’s Winter Circus tour promises: iconic moments that take us right back to our punk rock past. They’re a band that mean so much to so many, and re-ignite the spark in all of us with each reprise of our favourites.
Reliably on point as ever, The Bouncing Souls’ new song ‘As One’ channels street punk on the bass, alongside their ever-present focus, a community strength cut with a darker edge. There’ll never be a time when we don’t welcome the sight of Greg Attonito swaggering his way through ‘True Believers’, chorus aflame and beers raised in salute. ‘Gone’ gives us the first anthem moment that we crave, with each singalong-second heartfelt. Calling this tour a Winter Circus feels a tad reductive after the moment of honesty that The Bouncing Souls conjure.
Of course, we’re here for the mini-festival atmosphere that Less Than Jake conjure at every show. It’s almost like a quality guarantee that could be stamped on every ticket: we know exactly what we’re going to get, and it’s going to satisfy our urges for healthy nostalgia and a time to dance like we’re in a field circa 2004. Red lights glint off thrown glasses as we’re swept into ‘History Of A Boring Town’ as Chris DeMakes conducts our singalong, and we’re in full voice from the second the drop hits. “It’s too fuckin’ easy to play here! You just go crazy for the first note,” the frontman laughs, and he’s right too. We’d still be bouncing off the walls if they read their shopping lists for ninety minutes, but their little touches of drama – the blasts of smoke, the synchronised jumps, the inflatable mascots, the masked rabble-rousers that leap onstage – fuel a show that reaches beyond the standard look back at the greatest hits. As Roger Lima takes over vocals for ‘Lie To Me’, a burst of magnificent optimism sends a crowd-surfer flipping and extending ropes of connection into the audience. No one needs to be told to create a “unity pit” for ‘Last One Out Of Liberty City’, and our shouts can’t be repressed as we’re flung into ‘All My Best Friends Are Metalheads’. Phones rise and shoes are lost from feet as even the security guards are bemused at the sight of folk in their fifties skanking like no tomorrow, while remaining word-perfect and in total sync with DeMakes.
It’s always tricky for a band with such a long history to balance the old and the new – the anniversary retrospective hits with the newer numbers – but Less Than Jake seem to walk that tightrope with precision. Yes, most of the crowd are drawn by songs like ‘Johnny Quest Thinks We’re Sellouts’, its massive tension rising into a drop that crashes like a tidal wave with a note of longing on the fade out, or ‘The Science Of Selling Yourself Short’, a song that drags you back to a time when you could have been sincerely speaking those lyrics. However, while the newer songs peppering the set might not have the instant recognition of their hits, a track like ‘Walking Pipebomb’ is infused with their original energy like a teabag in hot water, the pressure cooker tempo radiating through tightly clicking rhythms. Meanwhile, ‘Sunny Side’ offers a gentler openness that finds something inspiring within the trumpet whirls that build as the song unfolds. DeMakes’ solo take on ‘The Brightest Bulb Has Burned Out’ is lush. Our emotion fills in the gaps left by the full band, and it’s our overwhelming singing that makes ‘Look What Happened’ so memorable live. We’re rapt until the last second when a glossy ‘Gainesville Rock City’ keeps us dancing until the howled finale.
The healthy niche that Less Than Jake have carved for themselves, as purveyors of consistently party-oriented tunes cut with cynicism that fulfil our need for nostalgia without cliche, has proven to be a welcome part of every millennial punk’s year. They’re obviously a polished ska-punk machine by now, but it’s the community they’ve built around themselves which makes tonight shine, and the joy you see beaming from every corner of the venue elevates the band above many of their contemporaries. This Winter Circus is welcome to roll back into town any time.
Kate Allvey
The thrill of entering Brixton Academy to the sound of The Bouncing Souls’ ‘Private Radio’ is unmatched, and that’s what Less Than Jake’s Winter Circus tour promises: iconic moments that take us right back to our punk rock past. They’re a band that mean so much to so many, and re-ignite the spark in all of us with each reprise of our favourites.
Reliably on point as ever, The Bouncing Souls’ new song ‘As One’ channels street punk on the bass, alongside their ever-present focus, a community strength cut with a darker edge. There’ll never be a time when we don’t welcome the sight of Greg Attonito swaggering his way through ‘True Believers’, chorus aflame and beers raised in salute. ‘Gone’ gives us the first anthem moment that we crave, with each singalong-second heartfelt. Calling this tour a Winter Circus feels a tad reductive after the moment of honesty that The Bouncing Souls conjure.
Of course, we’re here for the mini-festival atmosphere that Less Than Jake conjure at every show. It’s almost like a quality guarantee that could be stamped on every ticket: we know exactly what we’re going to get, and it’s going to satisfy our urges for healthy nostalgia and a time to dance like we’re in a field circa 2004. Red lights glint off thrown glasses as we’re swept into ‘History Of A Boring Town’ as Chris DeMakes conducts our singalong, and we’re in full voice from the second the drop hits. “It’s too fuckin’ easy to play here! You just go crazy for the first note,” the frontman laughs, and he’s right too. We’d still be bouncing off the walls if they read their shopping lists for ninety minutes, but their little touches of drama – the blasts of smoke, the synchronised jumps, the inflatable mascots, the masked rabble-rousers that leap onstage – fuel a show that reaches beyond the standard look back at the greatest hits. As Roger Lima takes over vocals for ‘Lie To Me’, a burst of magnificent optimism sends a crowd-surfer flipping and extending ropes of connection into the audience. No one needs to be told to create a “unity pit” for ‘Last One Out Of Liberty City’, and our shouts can’t be repressed as we’re flung into ‘All My Best Friends Are Metalheads’. Phones rise and shoes are lost from feet as even the security guards are bemused at the sight of folk in their fifties skanking like no tomorrow, while remaining word-perfect and in total sync with DeMakes.
It’s always tricky for a band with such a long history to balance the old and the new – the anniversary retrospective hits with the newer numbers – but Less Than Jake seem to walk that tightrope with precision. Yes, most of the crowd are drawn by songs like ‘Johnny Quest Thinks We’re Sellouts’, its massive tension rising into a drop that crashes like a tidal wave with a note of longing on the fade out, or ‘The Science Of Selling Yourself Short’, a song that drags you back to a time when you could have been sincerely speaking those lyrics. However, while the newer songs peppering the set might not have the instant recognition of their hits, a track like ‘Walking Pipebomb’ is infused with their original energy like a teabag in hot water, the pressure cooker tempo radiating through tightly clicking rhythms. Meanwhile, ‘Sunny Side’ offers a gentler openness that finds something inspiring within the trumpet whirls that build as the song unfolds. DeMakes’ solo take on ‘The Brightest Bulb Has Burned Out’ is lush. Our emotion fills in the gaps left by the full band, and it’s our overwhelming singing that makes ‘Look What Happened’ so memorable live. We’re rapt until the last second when a glossy ‘Gainesville Rock City’ keeps us dancing until the howled finale.
The healthy niche that Less Than Jake have carved for themselves, as purveyors of consistently party-oriented tunes cut with cynicism that fulfil our need for nostalgia without cliche, has proven to be a welcome part of every millennial punk’s year. They’re obviously a polished ska-punk machine by now, but it’s the community they’ve built around themselves which makes tonight shine, and the joy you see beaming from every corner of the venue elevates the band above many of their contemporaries. This Winter Circus is welcome to roll back into town any time.
Kate Allvey
