​If you’ve been following Antix Music Network, or Jack Saunders recently, you’ll know he released his debut album “Chapters” at the end of June.

On June 30th, Jack also performed at his own launch party at The Emporium, in Yeovil, with support from Tim Fawkes and Dave Woan.

This week, he’s re-releasing one of his songs, “Meet At The Light”, and raising funds for the Dementia UK charity in the process.

The song was originally released in 2019 as a single for Jack. The new 2023 version features the Weymouth Park Community Choir. “Meet At The Light” also holds a special place in many of the performer’s hearts, as it was written for Jack’s grandad, who unfortunately suffered dementia towards the later years of his life.

Jack has set up a GoFundMe page, where donations are welcome, with all money raised going to Dementia UK.

All the links you need are below.

Just Giving
Buy The Single on iTunes

Ben Hutcheson - Came From You & When I Come To Town

Since it’s been a while, let’s catch up a little and do two songs from Ben Hutchesons self titled debut album. 

Let’s start with “Came From You”. The song features some beautiful acoustic guitar, light drums, piano and some female backing vocals. The term easy listening comes to mind. And when I say that, I mean it’s just so relaxing and satisfying to listen to. You don’t have to listen to hard to enjoy the music. You can just sit back and let the music take you away on this amazing journey. 

Bens style is very similar to the ginger phenomenon that is Ed Sheeran. Its very much an acoustic singer songwriter album, a genre that I particularly love! Ben describes his music as modern country which I can definitely hear a lot of throughout his record.

What I notice a lot in Bens voice is this very natural vibrato. It’s beautiful and something that lots of singers would kill to have, and this song really shows it off. His voice works so well with the female backing vocalist during the chorus, there’s lots of beautiful harmonies throughout, but the chorus is really something special. 

Next up, it’s “When I Come To Town”. I want to stress that Bens album is a beautiful combination of upbeat acoustic numbers, and some really graceful piano ballads. But I chose this song in particular because of how easy and fun it is to singalong. I remember Justin Hawkins from the band The Darkness once stress that a catchy chorus will turn a good song, into a great song. And that’s exactly what this song is. On only my second listen, I managed to hum along a little with the chorus, and in my opinion, there’s nothing better than when you find a song with a chorus you can well and truly belt, and Bens really hit the nail on the head here with “When I Come To Town”. The acoustic guitar, the little bits and pieces of electric guitar, and of course that really great piano sound really makes this feel like a mainstream country album recorded by a big artist. You wouldn’t believe that this is a debut album!

The country genre is slowly coming back into mainstream music, especially over here in the UK where I don’t think there’s been a country song that’s really captured the nation since “Achey Breaky Heart”. But with the recent success of Anne Marie’s “Unhealthy” storming its way to number one, it feels like a younger audience is slowly warming up to this modern country sound. So in my opinion, this is the perfect time for Ben to show what he’s made of. And hopefully, he’ll manage to continue captivating and introducing people to a genre that usually is relatively neglected.

Great work, Ben. And congratulations on the debut album!

4/5

Written by Jack Saunders

The boys are back for the trilogy!

That’s right, The Idle Silence have returned once more for their third Antix review. As soon as I saw that the boys had released another single, I knew that we had to have them back!

This particular song just shows the versatility of the band. When you look back at the band’s previous songs, you realise that you seem to get a different style than before. The first song we reviewed was called “Dark Matter”, a really dark fusion of The Ramones meets Nirvana. Their second track  "Close”, very much reminiscent of Green Days Dookie record. And now “The Message Gets Confused”. So, what exactly does the latest Idle Silence track sound like?

Simply put, it’s a really interesting indie rock song that’s driven by a bass lick and simple drum beat with guitars floating around a little lower in the mix. To me, it is very reminiscent of Paramore's “This Is Why”. It’s a really cool and funky song. This is what makes the band so interesting and intriguing in my opinion. They aren’t just sticking to one style of music, they’re experimenting and exploring new things which is exactly how you grow a fan base. But don’t worry, if you aren’t digging the chill indie vibe, then there’s a twist.

Halfway through the song, the tempo is doubled and goes into this really heavy rock bridge that is similar to The Idle Silence’ first song “Dark Matter”. It goes from this chill festival tune to an energetic mosh song, before returning back to the original style that the rest of the song was in. It’s almost like you’re watching one band on tv, before changing the channel and catching a glimpse of a completely different style band momentarily, before switching back to the first channel. Definitely see why they’ve called it “The Message Gets Confused”.

What more can I say about the boys? They smash it every time. So it’s about time that they earned their highest rating yet.

5/5