Future static

The genre-agnostic mastermind behind Zeal & Ardor gives us a tour of his quirky record collection

SEEMINGLY OUT OF nowhere, the Darkness swooped out of Suffolk, England, and onto the international music scene in 2003 with their high-voltage debut, Permission to Land. At a time when hipster bands i

THE AMERICAN DREAM is a simple one: if you work hard and are dedicated, eventually good things come your way. This is the myth we tell ourselves, whether you are a plumber, a lawyer or a band member.

Before The Future LOST SOUND TAPES/SELF-RELEASED 8/10

From the noisy streets, community cafés and surprisingly verdant cemeteries of Southeast London have risen CAROLINE : a confoundingly brilliant eight-piece band with no obvious frontperson, fusing choral folk with fractured post-rock and experimental pop. As Sam Richards discovers, they haven’t made life easy for themselves. “But there has to be a vulnerability of some sort. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

Cradle Of Filth’s corpsepainted frontman on his skate punk roots, exploding basketballs, and 11th-century ghosts