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Yet every now and then there is a band that breaks that mould. A band that are good enough and fortunate enough to ‘make it big’. We’re had Gallows, Trash Talk and The Bronx in recent years, a small handful of bands that the mainstream music industry has bothered to take notice of.
This year the talk has all be about Iceage and Cerebral Ballzy. Certainly they’ve had the NME features and rep filled London gigs. But if you asked me to put a list together of bands likely to ‘do a Gallows’ and give the bland X-factor loving world of mainstream music a boot up the arse in the next few years, Bastions would be near the top.
‘Visitants’, from ‘Hospital Corners’
Not that it’s something I would guess is particularly on the bands’ mind. When I chatted to Jamie and Gareth (responsible for Guitar and Bass respectively) before their show at the Hope and Anchor earlier this month there was no hint of them being in a band wanting or expecting to ‘make it big’. Yet the hype is there. I mentioned word of mouth in the opening paragraph. Ask anyone who is into the British hardcore scene about the band and I’ll guarantee than almost every response you get will be positive. They’re just one of those bands that everyone wants to see right now.
The reason for that is down to the frantic cocktail of a string of highly impressive EPs and a ferocious live show that will have you’re jaw hitting the floor if you’re not careful. It’s the sort of thing that the best of reputations it built on. Yet when asked about their live show, the response isn’t what you might expect. Jamie describes the band as 'selfish' when it came to their sets, insisting they’re ‘not the kind of band that has people two stepped and whatever…generally people are either watching with interest or indifferent’ and making a point of not being a part of ‘Obey snapback’ hardcore. The set later will also see the band playing pretty much what they want to play, in this case an avalanche of new songs rather than older, more well-known material. Brave? Maybe, but as they will say themselves ‘We’d been playing the same songs for so long that you just want to entertain yourself as well as other people’. Perhaps it’s the fact the band seem to be managing that first part that makes them to entertaining to watch.
That new material, recorded in June of this year is (at the time of publishing) due to be released next week in the form of ‘Hospital Corners’ the band’s debut album. Yet it’s taken them a little while to get this far, with the band’s back catalogue already boasting the three solo EPs mentioned above, released on both Tangled Talk and Holy Roar records. There’s also been a whole battery of touring, in the last year alone there has been a tour alongside Goodtime Boys, the final Gallows tour with Frank Carter (not the first time they’ve supported the Watford band) and the Tangled Tour to name but a few. In many ways they’ve done things the old fashioned way, one release at a time with lots of shows in between.
Considering the amount of time they do spend on the road you might think they’d get sick of it. The truth however, appears to be the opposite. ‘It’s never about not wanting to play shows…’ they insist, although they will admit that the ‘twenty three and a half hours a day’ you spend waiting to play does get a bit slow at time. But, in respect to the Tangled Tour specifically they ‘Can’t complain too much, you’re getting to play music with bands, especially on this tour, that you like’. Talking to them you get the sense that whatever happens to the band, they’ll never stop wanting to be out, playing their music and gaining new fans. It’s a sentiment that the music world could do a lot more with.
Of course this is all very well, but will you like Bastions’ music? Well if you’re into anything even remotely linked to hardcore then the short answer is yes. More specifically, if you like you’re music heavy and urgent with lyrics of the soul bearing variety then you’ll really like Bastions. When asked (as every band I talk to are) their dream five band show line up it was Glassjaw, At the Drive In, Hot Snakes, Kurst and American Nightmare that got mentioned. It’s a list that pretty accurately reflects their sound.
Where will they be in a years time? Well if they get what they deserve then you’ll be seeing the name Bastions across magazine front cover and be hearing it on the lips of over excited music journalists the land over. It won’t just be the Daniel P Carter show that plays their music; you’ll be listening to live sessions from Madia Vale on the Zane Lowe show.
Of course, this being the real world what deserves to happen might not come to pass. The band however, have much humbler ambitions. Jamie is already planning the band’s next release, confessing that he likes to work ‘six months ahead of everyone else’ and as for where they’d like to be next year, ‘It would be nice to be more self-sufficient…nice to be able to play some shows and not worry so much...have leads that work and a bass that’s yours’ they say, completely sincerely. In many ways this final sound bite as the interview ends sums up one of the things that is so attractive about the band. There is a palpable sense that they’re doing what they want, for all the right reasons and aren’t going to take any bullshit from anyone. They’re the real deal, and it doesn’t take long to figure that out.
(Hospital Corners is released on the 7th of November on In At The Deep End records. Bastions are touring the UK in support of the album in November)
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