Broken Fires – Underside

Nostalgia and rueful, youthful memories run amok on the latest single from one of South Wales’ finest, Broken Fires. ‘Underside’ is a confessional letter to either a long lost compadres or love, we’re not sure which but evidently the affection is strong. Full of Frightened Rabbit and Biffy Clyro energy, singer Tom Stephens’ achingly honest lyrics and Ben Gibbard-esque vocals are an emotive compliment to the group’s searingly impassioned guitar lines and high intensity drumming.

Basically, it’s a song that’s gonna either make you leap about doing air guitar in your living room, or bring a little warm-hearted tear to your eye, depending on your frame of mind when listening, so be forewarned.

Along with ‘Underside’ comes the announcement of Broken Fires second album ‘Hymns’ due to be released on 28th October 2022. Featuring previous singles ‘Dreamer’, ‘New Friends’, ‘Midnight’ and ‘Sharks’ the record sounds as if it’ll be full of emotional rock energy. ‘Hymns’ is available to pre-order on Limited Edition Orange Vinyl now.

Broken Fires have also put together ‘Underside’s official DIY video using footage of their recent Canadian and UK tours. Take a watch on the “underside” of this article, lol (sorry):

Harri Larkin – Bonfire Toffee

Indie surf funk wonders Harri Larkin are back with their first single since last year’s ‘Beach City’ album and they’re totally on form. Having opened the main stage of Tramlines Festival this year, the Sheffield trio grasp the limelight shining on them right now with ‘Bonfire Toffee’ and it just so happens to be the best song they’ve put out there yet.

If Snail Mail hailed from the various areas of the UK that Harri Larkin come from (namely Cornwall and South Yorkshire) she might come up with something a little like this, a chilled out alt-pop hymn to wide-eyed love, heartache and whirlwind, beach-side romance. And another thing, if you’re asking, the most gorgeous part of the record is where it pares right down at the two minute thirty mark but, instead of fading off like it could, the track utterly explodes again and there’s a whole minute more of dopamine secreting, sun-bleached excellence.

‘Bonfire Toffee’ is out today – Friday 26th August 2022 and you can head over to Spotify to listen the hell out of it any time you like. We’ve sorted you out with a link below:

The Amazons – How Will I Know?

More usually versed in producing punchy, radio-friendly, indie-club dancefloor filling tunes, The Amazons have taken a bit of a departure on latest single ‘How Will I Know?’, instead venturing into a realm many experienced artists explore a few albums into their humongously successful career, of the blatant, towering, monumentally soaring Coldplay-level rock anthem and, boy, have they managed to do it in style.

All of the emotions are being prodded and poked here as the Reading four-piece mull over the remains of a relationship on it’s way down, kicking things off by belting out the magnificently succinct opening line “Damn out of luck and damn out of time”, as both parties go on to realise all that’s left of their love is just enough material for an utterly heart-breaking hit record.

‘How Will I Know?’ was released on 21st July 2022. You can pre-order The Amazons third album, due to be released on 9th September 2022 on the band’s official online store. The group are also heading out on tour, starting in September, and tickets are still available to snap up.

As should be expected for a song with this calibre of sentimentality, the video features lots of shots of American sunsets, embracing couples and longing looks into the distance, but when it’s done as well as this it’s actually rather touching. You can watch it below:

Landfill – Echo Chamber

Never ones to shy away from topical, relevant subjects, Landfill’s new single ‘Echo Chamber’ sees the Medway lads playfully dig into the 21st century scourge of letting your thoughts, beliefs and opinions be formed by your own carefully curated, narrow band of social media followers, whether through “twitter polls and Alan Shearer’s top 10 goals”.

With their third single release under their belt, Landfill have just about perfected their melodic punk with massive chant-along chorus sound and, clocking in at a perfect two minute thirty length, they do so with absolutely no hint of padding or filler, just straightforward, old-fashioned and high quality tuneage. And if you happen to have discovered across this article from Indie Music Instagram, Twitter or Facebook, well I guess the echo chamber may be good for the odd thing or two…

Landfill played what was by all accounts a storming set at This Feeling’s night at Kings Cross Water Rats last night (Saturday 20th August) and will no doubt be making their way around more venues in London and the South East very very soon. We were lucky enough to interview the band back in March and ‘Echo Chamber’ has piqued your interest you can always go back and have a read.

‘Echo Chamber’ was released on 19th August 2022 and you can find Spotify links below of the single and their banging live EP, released back in May, recorded at the Albion Rooms studios, which includes a truly ace version of the song along with a version of Len’s 90’s feel-good hit ‘Steal My Sunshine’:

Black Honey – Charlie Bronson

Singer and guitarist Izzy Phillips feels a sense of affinity with a somewhat unlikely, on the surface at least, character on Black Honey’s first single since sophomore album ‘Written & Directed’ was released in 2021. ‘Charlie Bronson’ sees the artist aligning herself with Britain’s most notorious prisoner who, in Izzy’s eyes, is also an embodiment of a discordant force of nature that can’t be accepted by society.

The group adorn their combative, outsider-chic allusion with a raging glam, power-pop stomp, confrontational bellows of “I’m Charlie fucking Bronson”, guitars violently fuzzed up to the max, an earworm of a chorus and lyrics that reference either Izzy’s or Bronson’s (or both’s) “Big smile just like Harley Quinn”, dropping in a fleeting impression of the Charlie Bit My Finger meme at the end, keeping the mood of a song about a divisive outlaw as light as Black Honey possibly can.

‘Charlie Bronson’ was released on 10th August 2022 and is available on all the streaming sites. You can find the video, which sees a bunch of people knocking seven bells out of each other in a boxing ring, below:

Skullcrusher – Whatever Fits Together

Underneath layers of sun-bleached and melancholy, echoey anti-folk guitar strums and blissfully distorted keyboard, New York solo artist Helen Ballentine, also known as Skullcrusher, delivers an emotion tugging new single, ‘Whatever Fits Together’, about leaving home to search for something without knowing what that something is, a notion further poignantly compounded by Skullcrusher’s floaty, otherworldly vocals.

The celestial effects laid over the main song get stripped away from the track toward the end, releasing Skullcrusher’s cherubic, transcendent vocals from the layers of sonic contortion to ask the ultimate, basic overarching questions “Do you ever look back? Does it all fit together? If we’re here, does it matter?” and the fact the song fades out leaving the query hanging there meaningfully in the air before a short piano outro, we’ll hedge a self-educated guess that the answer to the final question is “no”.

Skullcrusher’s long anticipated debut album ‘Quiet the Room’ is due for release on 14th October 2014 and is available to pre-order now on bandcamp on pink glass translucent vinyl and other formats. The track list can be found below:

  1. They Quiet The Room
  2. Building a Swing
  3. Whatever Fits Together
  4. Whistle of The Dead
  5. Lullaby in February
  6. Pass Through Me
  7. Could it be the way I look at everything?
  8. Outside, Playing
  9. It’s Like A Secret
  10. Sticker
  11. Window Somewhere
  12. (secret instrumental)
  13. Quiet the Room
  14. You are my House

‘Whatever Fits Together’ has a spell-binding video and you can watch it below:

Sugarstone – That’s Intense

Fuzzy distortion. Low rumbling electro squelches. Dance-metal beats and mosh-rock screams. The title of Manchester dreamy-electro hard-rockers Sugarstone’s latest single sums up the vibe entirely in two words – ‘That’s Intense’, although if the record was named after our reaction on our first listen the title would be: ‘Woah, That Was Fucking Massively Intense! Lemme Listen To It Again’.

Their new synth punk single has a bit of Nine Inch Nails, a bit of The Prodigy and even indie-dance, like a more hardcore version of Friendly Fires, all adding up to a tune as suited to a hot and sunny summer festival rave-up just as much as it would be a beery evening at the Night & Day.

‘That’s Intense’ was released on Friday 5th August and is the first single from their forthcoming EP. There’s a music video coming in the next few days, 16th August, but for now we’ve added the Spotify link below. Get it in your ears:

This is War! – Exile Poet

Liverpudlian quintet This is War! have crafted this excellently catchy tribute to Bob Dylan – named ‘Exile Poet’. Piecing together sounds as scattered as The Stranglers and fellow Mersey-wonders The La’s, the band, who only formed in the second half of 2021, do their musical idol justice by creating a truly tuneful anthem expressing their exaltant hero worship of the fella.

Even though the band are in their infancy they’ve still managed to pump out 7 singles so far with a plan to release a single a month until Autumn of this year, each release building on the last with ‘Exile Poet’ being potentially their most accomplished release yet. We’re sure if the cantankerous troubadour sixties icon himself were to stumble across the track whilst pottering about on Spotify even he’d be a little bit chuffed.

This is War! play EBGBS in Liverpool on Friday 19th August 2022 if you’re roundabout the area. Tickets are purchasable by tapping this link.

‘Exile Poet’ was released on 29th July 2022 and you can take a listen on the Spotify link below:

Grave Goods – Source

Existentialism and the post-punk genre go hand in hand. What better way to express the emptiness and therefore fullness of existence than through visceral and abrasive musical soundscapes and thought provoking lyrics free from the usual critical boundaries of other media? Taking full advantage, Grave Goods have grasped the medium of post-punk by it’s wilful wrists and on new single ‘Source’ have used it to explore the depths of Jean Paul Sartre’s philosophy, depths they’re due to dive further into on forthcoming debut LP ‘Tuesday. Nothing Exists’.

For now then, ‘Source’ sees the band who feature members of PINS, Girls Names and September Girls consider, with robotic, austere vocals, the flow of nature, following it back to the point of genesis that it came from, an expedition underpinned with piercingly angular guitars and shuddering bass, before shrugging leaps and bounds of mental gymnastics off with a casually simple “I don’t care”.

Grave Goods debut album ‘Tuesday. Nothing Exists’ is due to be released on 9th September 2022. It’s available to pre-order on limited red 12″ vinyl and digital release now through Band Camp. The record’s full track list is below:

1. Come
2. Source
3. Miles
4. None
5. Story
6. Eneeway
7. Die

‘Source’ was released on 3rd August 2022 and you can watch the single’s video below:

Himalayas – Alone

Cardiff five piece Himalayas have managed to pick up massive momentum over the past few years with a string of gut-punchingly brooding rock numbers culminating in 2020’s delicious ‘We Love To Hate’. Latest single ‘Alone’ sees the lads firing on all cylinders yet again, as it’s a gloriously sleazy sounding leviathan of a tune right from the opening machine gun blast of riffage.

The guitars are as hard as the guitars on a Himalayas track have ever been (which is incredibly fucking hard) with several gleefully satisfying solos and singer Mike Griffiths commits some nightmarishly creepy lyrics over ear-drum destroying musical craftsmanship. If you want your rock’n’roll to scare you a bit whilst making your ears bleed beads of pure ecstatic joy, ‘Alone’ is the track you want to put on right now.

‘Alone’ was released on 29th July 2022. The video sees the band playing for their lives in front of a hoard of grabbing shadows, visuals as ominously foreboding as the song itself. You can take a look for yourself below: