A neatly assembled genre merge awaits for Willow’s ‘<maybe> it’s my fault’ as it dials up and down the scale. It has indie sweet jangle at one end and some angry metal riffs at the other. It all makes sense, though, when you unpack the song. It all begins in the first verse, setting the […]
Get ready for some indie-pop sparkle for Rachel Chinouriri’s excellent summer-haze song ‘All I Ever Asked’. A sweet ‘woo-hoo-hoo’ vocal, a straight beat, a muted bass, and a reverb-tinged guitar line are all that’s needed to get things going as the song develops an emotional lyrical theme. The verse keeps things simple, just getting a […]
It seems like only 21 minutes ago that the tap was dripping, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip… though this assumes that Beabadoobee is snuggling up on the same Saturday night referred to by Smith, Tolhurst, and Dempsey¹. Though, thinking about it, that was in 1979, a full 21 years before Beabadoobee was born. […]
Featuring Perfume Genius (Michael Alden Hadreas), Yeah Yeah Yeahs make their return with ‘Spitting Off the Edge of the World’, the initial single from their first album in almost ten years. It’s four and a half minutes of sheer audio bliss. The swimming soundscape over the simple driving beat is a flood of sound, just […]
Rock and roll with a classic swing, playful lyrics, and a steamy lyrics video! The Dan Gootner Band, from Boynton Beach FL, sound like a seven-inch on the Jukebox of a sixties diner in their new single ‘Flora and Fauna’. The mid-paced beat is joined by the guitar, bass, and some brass for emphasis. The […]
Arriving like the most tingly surprise – a brown package with something delightful inside – ‘Something Loud’ is one of the best songs from Jimmy Eat World and I’m now stoked up and burning in preparation for what might be about to happen! With the band hitting the three-decade mark next year, it’s fair to […]
What a slick and driven song Blind Channel have dropped with ‘Don’t Fix Me’! Their signature sound is firing on all cylinders, with neat flips between the distinctive sections of the song. The vocal-cram verse collides with a melodic pre-chorus before punching through with the huge ‘Don’t Fix Me’ cry. There are smart moments in […]
If there was a resurgence of the werewolf genre in the movie theatres – another wave of Underworld or, perhaps, a new city ripe for exploration by a lycanthrope of American origin – Pixies would certainly be joining The Waterboys on the soundtrack with ‘There’s a Moon On’. The song starts with a howling guitar […]
As Pale Waves get ready for the release of their third album, Unwanted, on 12th August, ‘Reasons to Live’ arrives to give us our second taste after recent single, ‘Lies’. The song gets its first public play in about two hours’ time, but here’s what to expect… Similar to ‘Lies’, this is a stomping rock […]
Quirky alt-pop with a buzzy edge, Lauran Hibberd’s ‘I’m Insecure’ has a stuttery format with a great flowing chorus. You know the drill by now, people, there’s a lot of fun, but also something substantial underneath. So the format is a mix of a real stop-start verse, a rap section, and a hooky chorus. The […]
We are always here for an Old Neon single launch and today is the day they deliver us ‘Today is Screaming Your Name’. It’s different from previous singles in many respects, so let us help you unpack it, while the band themselves provide the audio backdrop. It begins with a guitar, crisp with the faintest […]
Cassyette has a double-treat for us all this week with, ‘Sad Girl Summer’ and ‘Dead Roses’ both scratching past the rusty iron of the letterbox and dropping onto the broken glass and splinters of our doormat. Let’s start with ‘Sad Girl Summer’ and then deal with the surprise of the second one afterwards. ‘Sad Girl […]
Eddie returns and you may be asking: ‘Is it any good?’ Well, buckle up because ‘Rose of Jericho’, from Vedder’s new solo album Earthling, is a speedy ride to a future we may already be able to predict. When you hear the drums, minimal yet punchy, and shortly after the ‘one, two’ count-in, you get […]
Get ready for the shivers, as Suede get everything right in ‘She Still Leads Me On’. It’s got the vitality of Coming Up and the feels of A New Morning. But wait! Let’s start at the beginning. There’s a casual in-the-room feel to the start, a hi-hat and a crunchy riff. A bit of spoken […]
Magnolia Park team up with Mayday Parade’s Derek Sanders for their latest single, ‘Feel Something’. The video evokes Sum 41 or Good Charlotte, the band nestled in the nurturing bowl of a skate park, with fans in hoodies and masks like a slasher horror. The music isn’t horror, though. Not by any means. As with […]
With their new EP, The King and Queen of Gasoline arriving on 5th August 2022, ‘Teenage Runaways’ gives us another example of what to expect (after recent single ‘Bad Influence’). Let’s disassemble this packed single because there is plenty going on. We start off with some fuzzy bass and a solid beat that quickly leads […]
Delicate and soft, ‘Angel of Death’ (acoustic version) is about as far away from my favourite Manchester Orchestra track as you can get. (It’s ‘Shake it Out’, by the way.) However, with the stripped-back presentation and the spotlight on the vocal, this has all the beauty of a Passenger track. The original was drums, bass, […]
As part of our attic finds series, we’ve been given unique access to previously unreleased material from one of the featured bands, Brussel Spaceship. The band was active from 1986-1992 and recorded eight records during that time. Their live shows were stacked, the band was able to fill venues and draw crowds when they played […]
Pale Waves dropped a new single called ‘Lies’, along with an announcement of a new album slated for an August release followed by a UK tour. Happy times. So ‘Lies’ is an alt-pop punk-tinged stomper that has some similarities to Willow’s recent album – the new punk wave that draws on myriad styles to create […]
Quick and quirky, Lauran Hibberd’s ‘Step Mum’ is a comic-book caricature song with alt-pop bounce with a chorus break that references The Colour and the Shape, which we file under “unexpected influence”. The song is playful, though cutting, and barely steps across the two-minute mark. It’s the kind of irreverent material that Lauran does so […]
Released towards the end of last month, ‘Chase the Sunrise’ is a delightful stripped-down acoustic song from Almost Autumn. It has the feel of a live performance and no evidence of production shenanigans, which means you’re getting a real intimate rendition. The song has emotional lyrics and is driven by a melodic structure that is […]
Cassyette has taken us in a couple of directions with previous singles. ‘Petrichor’ was a thick nu-metal variant with a dark verse, visceral pre-chorus, and dark-Paramore chorus. Then ‘Behind Closed Doors’ gave us tenebrous rock stomp before ‘Dear Goth’ added an emo guitar line and a pop-rock chorus. The fluidity around a theme continues in […]
Hot on the heels of ‘Jupiter Pluvious’, this new single from Me Rex gives us more alt-pop richness in the form of the arm-hair tingler, ‘Toilet of Venus’. This song conures a certain nostalgic jaded feel with its slightly melancholic lyrical references, but it’s accompanied by a positive beat and smart instrumentation. The hook line […]
They had me with the moody intro, but Until I Wake’s ‘Inside My Head’ bursts into flickering brilliance with lots of shifts from subdued melancholy to giant loudrage. When they turn everything up to ten, it’s a wall of buzzing guitars and huge drums, but they can do intricate stuff too, as they prove throughout […]