Hello Warriors,

We have been on the road in the past week!

Returning from Estonia and the ever wonderful Tallinn Music Festival we then relocated to Brighton for The Great Escape and got immersed in yet more live music before hopping up to London to play with the Membranes and watch amazing support sets from the Wolfhounds and Meatraffle.

Back now in Manchester with hideous head colds and tired limbs it’s time to see what’s been going on on Louder Than War world!

Firstly, as you probably already know, the annual subscriptions are up for renewal this week.

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These people do long hours and really, really appreciate the money and thank you for your kind support - it’s important to point out that none of the main people running the site take any money - we want the money to go to everyone else first.

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This has been, as ever, a big week for music,

One off our most read live reviews ever has been of the Tool show in London. The enigmatic American band, who combine prog, dark wave, post punk and their own unique DNA has seen them become one of the biggest and yet most mysterious bands on the planet and their live shows is a mesmerising and stunning affair as we unpick here.

Even the young bands now seem old! There was a time when My Chemical Romance were sprightly goth lite elf youth hopping around in Emo stadiums and embracing new generation freaky kids. Now reformed the band are somehow in the classic rock pantheon and have just announced support acts for their upcoming UK tour.

One of the measures of the true strength in punk was how far the quality went. 999 were never one of the upper tier of the form sales wise but they had fringe success in the UK and USA - listen to their music now is a reminder of just how damn brilliant they were as this new anthology proves this and there are so many diamonds on there.

Another classic punk is the iconic Gaye Advert who gave John Robb this in depth interview about her life, the punk days and the Adverts.

TheTallinn Music Week that we mentioned above was an extraordinary affair. As ever it has great bands on and with a real eye to cultural detail but the added tension of the Russian situation was dealt with. A part of the festival was held in Narva on the Estonia/Russia border. Bands played in a huge mill built to resemble a Manchester mill and with Russia 30 feet away across the river the music boomed out as we wondered about the future.

Warpaint have returned and our reviewer was pleased to report that the band have turned a corner from last time when it felt like the end of the road was approaching, tonight instead marks the opening of a new chapter for Warpaint.

The punk rock Elvis - Billy Idol has announced his new tour dates for his postponed arena show and fantastically and for some controversially has announced Television as support.

The new Spiritualised album is a wonderful work and the live show brings the same kind of magic as our live review from Manchester reports.

Wire have announced the proper release of a collection of outtakes from their classic post punk period.

With the release of 50 Foot Wave’s new album Black Pearl and a UK tour currently in progress, Kristin Hersh chats about getting back on tour, songwriting, and imagining what it means to make egalitarian music.

The Hacienda is now 40! And to celebrate the car park of the last built on top of the canonic venue has been turned into a Hacienda for the evening. It’s actually the same cellar as the canonic venue so it’s almost like being there and the night will surely be a wild reminder of those days of yore.