Endurance test

While I'm not the biggest fan of traditions, there are some that are worth preserving and celebrating - one of which being Nightshift duo Ronan and Sam's annual account of attempting to survive (and even eke some enjoyment from) the Cornbury Festival. It looked as though the tradition would die out with the demise of the festival itself, but thankfully the organisers decided to resurrect it so us readers could once again take vicarious pleasure in not being there.

This year the torture to which they voluntarily subjected themselves included headline sets from UB40 and Alanis Morissette, but at least there was the consolation of seeing the likes of Mavis Staples and The August List while getting baked alive. In fact, they make it sound infinitely preferable to the well-intentioned but horrifyingly hippie Tandem festival, also reviewed in the August issue of the magazine.

Nice to see, too, that the issue features on its cover Ghosts In The Photographs. A band whose post-rock has always packed plenty of punch (I'm not the only one to have detected a post-hardcore influence, it seems), the trio are starting to transcend their influences and carve out their own niche.