“I decided to give myself six weeks to write an album like they used to do back in the day and that became really inspiring” Serge recalls. “It was going to be classic songs, no self-indulgence, nothing was going on there that shouldn’t. I’d heard Berry Gordy had said if you’ve not got them in the first four bars then you’re finished, so I went in with this old school attitude of song-writing.”

Following the more electronic direction on 2014’s ‘48:13’ Kasabian were keen to make a truly great guitar album. “There was an ambition to save guitar music from wherever the hell it’s going. We’re trying to save it from being written off as just old music. We wanted to make a very positive album full of hope with guitars to remind people that it’s still relevant.”

The band originally formed as Saracuse in 1997, but later changed their name – taking their new moniker from Linda Kasabian, a get-away driver for the notorious Charles Manson. Despite first beginning to record material in the late ‘90s, the band didn’t release their eponymous debut album until 2004.

Their second album, ‘Empire’ was a huge success, spawning a further run of hit singles while the album itself debuted at Number One oon the UK Albums Chart.

Its follow-up, ‘West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum’, was their bravest and boldest yet but still no less popular: in additions to scoring them a consecutive Number One, it was also nominated for the 2009 Mercury Music Prize.

2012 saw the band release ‘Velociraptor’ which saw another arena tour and headline slots at the Isle of Wight and Reading/Leeds. 2013 saw the band headline Hard Rock Calling in London’s Queen Elizabeth Park.

As the ten year anniversary since the release of their self titled debut approached in 2014, Kasabian went on to headline Glastonbury, play their biggest show to date in front of a sold out crowd of 50,000 Leicester fans and release the critically acclaimed album ‘48:13’.

In 2015, the band headlined V Festival, and 2016 saw the band play two sell out shows at the King Power Stadium in celebration of Leicester City’s unlikely Premier League title success.

Kasabian have four UK No.1 albums to their name and have sold over 5.5 million albums worldwide. They’ve won a Brit, seven NME awards, four Q Awards and have headlined Glastonbury Festival, as well as V Festival, T in the Park, and numerous festivals worldwide.

Bristling with energy and oozing optimism, Great Divide is a rock record with widescreen ambition, inspired by the band watching their own fans and from sharing stages with the likes of Springsteen and Foo Fighters.

“Our aim was always to make songs this size,” says Twin Atlantic singer Sam McTrusty. “Coming from a punk rock background, it took a while - we like to say we went the scenic route. But it was the right route for us, full of interesting stops on which we learnt a lot – about ourselves, about each other, about how to make music that connects with fans which is always honest, never forced.”

Almost three years and over 300 gigs since the release of their silver-selling, debut album, Free, catapulted them from clubs to sold-out shows at Shepherds Bush Empire to the main stage at Reading and Leeds and this summer, Glastonbury, Twin Atlantic have made a mainstream record that marries their incredible energy live with a more mature approach to songwriting that acknowledges their long-held love of pop. Great Divide may be driven by guitars and drums, but it is also steeped in piano and strings, built on soaring melodies and littered with lyrics, sung in McTrusty’s strong Scottish accent, that express grown-up emotions as chantalong slogans.

“We’ve been through our punk rock rebellion phase and come out the other side,” laughs McTrusty. “We’ve all grown up being in this band. Dare I say it, we’re finally fully-formed adults. Since Free, some of us have got married and bought our own places and I’ve spent time in Canada because my girlfriend lives there. When the four of us got back together to work on this album, there was no bullshit. With our own lives sorted, it was easier to see the point of the songs and how we wanted them to sound. And, definitely, part of that was embracing pop.”

Pop hooks and harmonies abound on songs such as Hold On, an ode to self-belief driven by drums it’s difficult not to dance to. ‘It’s a risk worth taking/To

have a life worth living’ sings McTrusty on a huge, hooky chorus that’s a surefire summer singalong. The stunning Brothers And Sisters, set to shimmering guitars, bulked up by multi layered vocals and boasting a soft-loud dynamic is a collective call-to-arms dedicated to those who refuse to give up on their dreams.

Flamboyant first single Heart and Soul is a dirty rock stomper that sums up the shared feelings of a bouncing festival crowd, nods to both classic Bon Jovi and Queen and has already moved George Ergatoudis, Radio 1’s head of music, to tweet ‘Hyperbole alert. No joke - STUNNING does not do them justice.’ The single went in at number 17, a phenomenal achievement for a rock band in this day and age.

Twin Atlantic formed in 2007 when McTrusty and bassist Ross McNae, a friend from school, joined forces with drummer Craig Kneale and lead guitarist and occasional cello player Barry McKenna. All four had been in previous bands on the Glasgow scene. They bonded over a shared love of alternative rock, punk-pop and the city’s skate and street art scene, as well as a determination to make music their day jobs. Their ferocious shows soon saw them booked to support Smashing Pumpkins, Biffy Clyro and their teen idols Blink 182. Within two years, they had played most major UK festivals and been signed, following a tip-off from Alan McGee, to American label Red Bull Records.

“Our A&R person saw us at this strange snowboarding Channel 4 gig at Battersea Power Station,” recalls Kneale. “We pure went for it at that show, not because we knew anyone was watching, but because we were fucking freezing. We were surrounded by fake snow, our hands so cold we couldn’t hold our guitars. Either we went for it or we froze. Our A&R said it was the craziest gig he’d ever witnessed.”

A mini album, Vivarium, released in 2009, found Twin Atlantic fans in Kerrang!, saw them tour Europe and the States, play festivals including Download and Sonisphere and support My Chemical Romance. Free, their debut proper, followed two years later, boasting three singles playlisted by Radio 1, including the title track, which soundtracked Felix Baumgartner’s historic space jump in 2012.

“We were told Felix himself chose it,” says Kneale, “because he liked the lyric ‘Set my body on fire so I can be free’.” I guess he knew something could go horribly wrong. Thank God it didn’t! It wouldn’t have been a good epitaph for us.”

Most of Great Divide was written last year, while Twin Atlantic were still touring Free. “90% of it was written in the back of the tour bus, or a sweltering van in America,” says McTrusty. “Our adrenaline was through the roof because, for the first time, thousands of people had come to see us. I’d be in the lounge, unable to sleep, recording ideas on my phone, trying to make sense of the reaction we’d had to our songs. You can’t hear 10,000 people singing a chorus back at you and not be changed by it.

“I’d sit there thinking ‘I wish I’d had this type of song’ or been able to make people feel a certain way. I tried to write for people who don’t dance, and

didn’t intend to, but couldn’t help it cos the energy of the song meant they couldn’t stand still.

“I was definitely inspired by playing with Bruce Springsteen, who we supported at Hard Rock Calling last year. Every song of his is an anthem, even if it’s weird and complicated. You can’t see Springsteen and not remember it the next time you write.”

The bulk of Great Divide was recorded in Rockfield in Wales with producer Gil Norton (Foo Fighters, Pixies), who also helmed Free. Additional songs were recorded in the States with Jacknife Lee (Snow Patrol, U2, R.E.M.). The Rockfield sessions lasted much longer than had been planned and almost broke the band.

“We were there, between festivals, for most of last summer,” recalls McTrusty. “Remember how good the weather was? We were ridiculously decadent, lying in the sun, bringing back loads of alcohol. We bought a big projector screen, played FIFA and watched nearly every James Bond film.

“At the start it was amazing. We were inspired by stories of the bands who had been there before us. We used the piano that’s on Bohemian Rhapsody. But by the end, when the album still wasn’t finished, the place started to feel too isolated. Silence to me is terrifying – I’m from inner city Glasgow, I’ve always lived on a main road.”

One of the results of the extended Rockfield sessions was the song Oceans, Twin Atlantic’s favourite on the album. “Oceans could only have been written somewhere like that,” says McTrusty. “It sounds like a cry from an unhinged, isolated person, which is what I became there.”

Hold On also took on new meaning, becoming a metaphor for a band at breaking point. “There were a lot of frayed ends and decisions to make,” says McTrusty. “Hold On was us telling ourselves to not give up, that we’d get there in the end. Did we ever think the end was nigh? I’m not sure, but we did hold on and we made it and that’s what matters.”

But the level of their modesty is no match for the scale of the achievement. Purveyors of infectiously crunchy, melodic and spring-loaded hardcore, their rise to the status of UK rock’s most-likely-to has been steady and, with hindsight, inevitable. It might look like that now, but they couldn’t have planned any of this that way. The four members fell together in the late-2000s, uniting as they realised that each other were all the most impressive members of their scene. With a DIY ethic that was honourable, but also borne from necessity, everything they have done until now has been written in Mike’s kitchen. Their story has been proof that the good will usually out.

Since releasing their debut EP ‘Bretton’ in 2008, through two more self-funded albums (2010’s ‘Far Q’ and 2011’s ‘World Record’) and a Biffyesque commitment to touring, they earned a fearsome reputation on the underground circuit, fast rising to prominence, media acclaim and with an often-terrifyingly devoted fanbase. Now, having attracted the attention of Island Records, they’re all set to release their ‘Changing Tune’, the album that looks set to turn them into British rock’s next great crossover act.

As is always the case with self-motivated rock bands who do it the old-fashioned way, they let ‘the industry’ find them rather than seeking anyone out, and after a whispering campaign led them gaining a buzz, they were sought out and seduced. One night in early 2012, in London on the final day of their sold out UK tour, they signed a record deal with a major label and then went off and played the biggest headline show of their careers. Life was going well. The journey then took them and producer John Mitchell to Rockfield Studios in Wales, a place steeped in rock history. Each day they would walk out past the weathervane that inspired the “any way the wind blows” line in Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. They would sit underneath the same stars that were shining on Chris Martin when he wrote ‘Yellow’. “And there we are,” says Mike, “getting pissed and lighting our farts on the sofa. It was mental!” Clearly, you can take the boy out of Watford…

‘Changing Tune’, the album that transpired, from the frenetic buzz of lead single ‘Love Someone Else’, retains the snarl that made their name, but moves them onto a place that, while not exactly more adult (who would want that?) then certainly more sure of itself. “We released a really hardcore metal album,” says Ben, “the second was a fast aggressive punk album, the third one was kind of your skeleton of a basic rock album, a skeleton of what this is. This’s a big, muscly dude complete with skin and organs.”

And while they’ve hardly ‘gone pop’, they do acknowledge a determination to use the bigger platform now that they’ve earned it. “I think our band has a message,” says Mike, “and if you want your message to get across, why wouldn't you make your music that little bit more palatable so that it reaches a wider audience? We feel we can pull that off without losing integrity”

And that message? “We’re four normal working class guys, who had shit jobs and no decent qualifications or anything like that. We’re just normal people. Our message now is that if you want something bad enough and really work hard - it will happen. We’re proof of that” The experience is affecting them more than they might have expected. Of the significance of the title, Mike only half-jokes, “originally there were a couple of positive songs on the album lyrically, which we’d never had before. We used to be so broke, we’d had the worst luck, and everything was kind of downtrodden, bummed out and whinging. But our band became our career, how can you moan when you’re having the time of your life? We've definitely changed our tune.” Although, keen not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, he smirks, “I'll always find something to moan about”

In fact, that attitude, and the wealth of new experiences (from getting a Fender Rhodes and a theremin to “using the studio as an instrument,”) inspires the album in unexpected and colourful ways. This is the message that burns through the whole of ‘Changing Tune’. And the band are primed to expect to expect the unexpected. For a band who named themselves after a place so deep, Lower Than Atlantis are getting themselves ready for the heights.

So, you buy it, take it home, play it and it sounds like tosh? Yeah, well this is not one of those times. This is the story of The Temperance Movement: five guys, four of them in London, one in Scotland. In short, they rock.

Big, sweaty, old-school, sincere rock. But, like all the best rock bands, they roll too. They have a swagger, a bravado. Soul.

This is a band that merges two highly valuable commodities: riff driven blues based rock and seriously impressive – nay, spellbinding - musicality. Sure, it’s been a long time coming but, thank god, they’ve finally arrived.

Their songs seem to occupy wildly opposite extremes; wide angle panoramic vignettes or short, sharp shocks to the system. They all, however, have one common denominator – a stunning ability to deliver a message. The emphasis, lyrically, is always on aching, some might say painful, life issues – everything from heart-on-sleeve confessionals to a defiant, let's-get-back-into-the-ring-and-take-on-all-comers boldness. Out of it all though, there is a sense of revelation, a feeling that these guys are actually writing about real life lessons learnt on the road to redemption.

It started, as these things so often do, by chance. Singer-songwriter Phil Campbell's impressive solo career should be well known to you. A Scottish Ryan Adams but with better songs, his flight to fame was interrupted by the sort of obstacles only the music business can throw in your path. He was saved by an unexpected call from guitarist Luke Potashnick. “We're starting a band,” said Luke. “A proper band. Bluesy. Rocky. A bit Black-Crowes-ish. Do you fancy it?” His head said, “I'm not sure,” but his gut said, “Yes.”

The we turned out to be Luke and Paul Sayer, two friends who’d known each other for some time. Both were seasoned songwriters and musicians but wanted to step into something more permanent. With Phil on board, they knew they had the foundations of something very special indeed.

Recruiting the perfect rhythm section took a little while longer than expected with the trio working their way through a few combinations until jamming with bassist Nick Fyffe and Australian-born drummer Damon Wilson. The Temperance Movement was born.

In the 12 months they've been together, they've written plenty of songs. A well-received five track EP, 'Pride', has recently been issued to soak up some of the interest and the album is good to go. It came together easily. They are just one step away from finding a home for it.

Although initially only intended as a filming of a band rehearsal rather than a proper video, the effortlessly brilliant EP track 'Only Friend' has become a firm favourite on YouTube leading to play-listings on several clued-in radio stations. Live shows are selling out and touring is set to commence.

Says Damon: "People are loving our stuff. Older people are getting the influences - Free, The Band, Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, The Stones - and the younger crowd, they just think it's a Black Keys slash Jack White kind of vibe. They can see it's real and they get off on that."

‘It makes me laugh really. We don’t think about that anymore, we play our shows and we make our albums and that’s it. Since we started ’10:20’ me and Jon and Saunders have gone back where we started, playing and enjoying it and not caring about all that radio playlist and other stuff. We can go out and play to a thousand people or more and they all get it and that’s what matters now. We have fans sending us pictures of tattoos with the lyrics on and coming up to us at shows telling us how we’ve been their favourite band since they first heard ‘Wide Awake’. We’ve got new tunes and we want to make those and then we’ll write more.’

Funny how things change…if a decade ago you had told The Twang, then an unknown quantity outside their native Birmingham and ostensibly vocalists Phil Etheridge and Saunders and bass player Jon Watkin (now augmented by new writing partner, guitarist and some time film maker Jon ‘Simmo’ Simcox) that being on their own label, touring predominantly at weekends and aiming to make music that has no care for radio play would make them happier to be in The Twang than at any other point in the band’s now 8 year public existence they would have looked at you askance. But then a decade ago was a different country.

Key in these changes is the addition of the man the band all call ‘Simmo’. Originally the band’s monitor engineer, a day job that continues for him with the likes of Primal Scream and the Kills, Phil suggests he was ‘was always kind of in the band’ although his presence during the writing process for ‘Jewellery Quarter’ was purely as mate and cheerleader. By the time the band came to ’10:20’ he was writing and co-producing tracks in what Phil describes as ‘a way of working together that was relaxed and for me personally easily the most fun we've had in the studio since before the band got a record deal’. Not content with slotting into the musical side of the band it was Simmo that came up with the concept for the recent video for ‘The Wobble’, a taster for the new album and a piece of film that flies in the face of any clichés that may still persist about the band.

The Twang’s new album looks backwards in only one way, its title. ‘NEONTWANG’ references the band’s original name, all that time ago, pre the explosion in interest and the climbs and swoops that went with it. It’s a binder of a title; in essence the core trio are the same as they ever were, and a restatement of what really drives this band to continue producing music and touring, the same spirit and obsession with music that took them to the bowels of a less than salubrious pool hall in the Bearwood area of Birmingham throughout the early years of the noughties.

‘NEONTWANG’ resonates with a love of music. In true Twang fashion, finding common cause with producer Rory Attwell was a combination that, on first utterance through a media lens seems as likely as bread and porridge but, in conversation with both parties makes perfect sense, forged on a love of music and a disdain for the ephemera that so much of music conversation seems to contain these days. The newfound camaraderie led the band to his Lightship95 studio on the Thames and a series of recordings that encompass light touch balladry, dub, trip hop and sunshine pop. That early leak of ‘The Wobble’ from the album points the way, a track that veers from delicate melody to overdriven industrial noise, it is the perfect pointer for an album that cares only for its own quality. Five months on from that Jazz Café show, Phil is, if possible, even happier than that summer night with his new album fresh from the mastering studio.

‘Rory was the perfect guy for the job. We were going to do a track or two with him and it just clicked and that was it, he’s doing the album. I get that some people will hear that we’ve recorded with Rory and they’ll think it’s weird but that says more about how people think about music and bands these days than it does about us or Rory. We do our thing, he likes it and we like what he comes up with to make it better.’

Freedom from the forensic gaze of the media suits The Twang. ’10:20’ turned some unlikely heads. NME, the title that more than any other had been both the promoter and bête noire of the band went so far as to categorise the album as ‘really good songs, simple as that’ whilst The Fly identified ‘maudlin prettiness and intelligence’ throughout the record. So, is this another of those redemptive stories so beloved of the UK press, from heroes to zeroes to heroes again? Phil shakes his head and smiles.

‘The thing is we were never what we were painted to be. So with ’10:20’ we did feel a bit of vindication, you know you point at the review and say ‘yeah, but that’s what we have been doing all the way through’. But, you know, you move on from that kind of need after a while. Anyone who has been through that thing of being the shit and then being just shit knows that neither side of the coin is really the truth and that, once you’ve fought your way through it, it doesn’t really matter. If no one came to see us, if no one bought the records or sang back to us at the gigs, that would hurt but what someone says in a magazine or on the web doesn’t really matter’.

If you are reaching for labels you could say that The Twang have ‘grown up’ or that they have realised the hollow nature of fame or found redemption in their music. But, nice as that narrative may be it is nowhere near the truth. Hard though it may be to accept The Twang are much the same as they ever were, in love with music past and present, committed to a band that has been their reality for their entire adult lives. As is normally the case, Phil Etheridge has the last word:

I’m happier now than I have been in the band. We had all that attention and a fair amount of cash but that wasn’t ever what it was about. The new tunes are the best we have written, working with Rory on a deadline was the most exciting studio experience I have had, that sense of getting on with it, capturing the excitement and not thinking about it all the time or talking about it endlessly and what it ‘means’ or who will like it. We like it. The fans will like it. That’s what matters.’

With its gushing melodies, haunting hooks and gorgeous instrumentation, The Kundalini Target has all the markings of a top ten album. Steve Cradock, the hardest working musician in the music industry, after the recognition and admiration from many fellow musicians for his solo work ( Paul Weller, Richard Hawley Stone Roses, Liam Gallagher just to name a few) he' s back with his 3rd solo album, out later this year.