Edge of Arcady

Real Farmer – Compare What’s There

We’ll admit our ignorance and state that before writing this review we admit to being ill informed of the Dutch music scene and couldn’t even place Groningen, Real Farmer’s home town, on the map. But since completing our homework our audio world has been brightened up due to Personal Trainer, The Klittens, Frontsector, Youth Deprivation, to name a few (check out the God Is In The TV interview from January for more recommendations from the group) and the emergence of this DIY punk-ish quartet from the country’s diverse music scene makes magnificent sense.

To paint Real Farmer entirely as a punk band would be doing them wrong and their debut LP ‘Compare What’s There’ contains enough contrasting sounds to combat any such stringent labels while maintaining an undeniably punk rock spirit. Think Idles but more free-form, being as experimental and inventive as a group could be when retaining the rudimentary ingredients of guitar, bass, drums and a microphone, albeit with some murkily fuzzed up amps.

‘The Feeding’ strikes off at raw breakneck speed, only to be stopped in it’s tracks by the album’s first single ‘Inner City’, featuring strong backing vocal contribution from bassist Marrit Meinema next to frontman Jeroen Klootsema, reminiscent of Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon’s Sonic Youth dynamic. Meinema’s prominence is further proved by the strong bass parts throughout the record, most notably on the album’s third single ‘Consequence’, the sparse intro of ‘Empty’ and the expansive angular artrock of ‘Wayside’.

As well as wielding a hefty dose of authenticity, the four piece tackle the scourge of gentrification (‘Gentrified’), the drug lifestyle (‘The Straightest Line’) with ‘Perry Boys’ taking it’s title from the Fred Perry bedecked 80’s Mancunian football casual scene, yelling “What you want is a waste of time/ I got problems but these ain’t mine”. ‘Next In’ feels the weight of financial restraint, begging “Take me to places that I can’t afford/ In front of them, the worst place to fall” and ‘I Can’t Wait’ and final track ‘Never Enough’ feel like they might just crack with anger and heartbreak.

When asked about the band’s name, Jeroen Klootsema said that he grew up on a farm so the moniker’s stating plain fact, but there is nothing rural about Real Farmer. There’s plenty of charm in the straight forward reality of their name, but ‘Compare What’s There’ echoes the modern, complex sounds of a loud and rowdy, heterogeneous suburbia, no muddy fields and tractors in sight.

‘Compare What’s There’ was released on 8th March 2024 by Strap Originals records. You can buy the record right now and it comes replete with a double sided A2 poster with lyrics. You can also stream it on all of the streaming sites right this very second.

We’ve put the video for ‘Consequence’ down below there so you can have a watch:

Death Of The High Street – Mental Wealth

The new one from Death Of The High Street sees the Midlands lads in sheer, seething, all-out rock mode with heavy punk riffs and an honest exposition of the wild intricacies involved in addressing your mental health. Beginning proceedings in the therapist’s office, a story unfolds of youthful bad decisions, unravelling sanity, toxic comparison and regret.

‘Mental Wealth’ wields Green Day guitars and persistent drumming to craft a sensitively put, warts and all deep dive into psychiatric breakdown, illustrating the subject with poetic finesse in lines such as “I was cartwheeling with a nuclear device/ I was spraying fire from my nose and my eyes/ I was down and angry”, reiterating the importance of talking to your mates when you’re feeling messed up. You’d do well to stick this tune on too, as a reminder you’re far from alone.

The release comes complete with original artwork from DOTHS fan Charlie Fox. You can bag a Limited Edition print of the record cover over on the group’s bandcamp for a fiver, with all proceeds split to support the artists and a mental health charity.

‘Mental Wealth’ was released yesterday, 8th March 2024, and is available to stream right this very moment on whichever streaming platform you’re keen on. We’ve put a Spotify link below for you cos there’s no time like the present:

The Mysterines – Stray

Merseyside grunge-rockers The Mysterines are fresh off of touring with Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes and prepping for album number two, ‘Afraid Of Tomorrows’. To pave the way for a paranoid and brooding future, the four piece have come back with ‘Stray’, a creeping serenade to the dark shadowy recesses of the human psyche.

Lia Metcalfe’s bewitching vocals are at their most commanding, wrapped around a moody bassline, dragged along by striding drums through the verses before the chorus hits like a raging force of nature, the singer feverishly bellowing the incensed proposal: “We’re stray/ Can we just rewind back?”.

‘Afraid Of Tomorrows’ is due for release on 7th June 2024 and you can pre-order it now on transparent orange 180g vinyl and CD. We’ve put the tracklist for you below:

1 – The Last Dance
2 – Stray
3 – Another Another Another
4 – Tired Animal
5 – Jesse You’re A Superstar
6 – Hawkmoon
7 – Sink Ya Teeth
8 – Junkyard Angel
9 – Goodbye Sunshine
10 – Inside A Matchbox
11 – So Long
12 – Afraid Of Tomorrows

‘Stray’ was released on 20th February 2024 and the video sees Lia tangled up and dancing in a blood red web. Check it out below:

Hinds – Coffee

Riotous Madrid rock duo Hinds’ first single back after a four year spell, ‘Coffee’, sees the pair triumphantly casting off all shreds of shame and bellowing out a bunch of contentious things they adore, “Yeah I like black coffee and cigarettes/ And crying to hard rock on my holidays” whilst managing to include as well an emphatic shout out to their home city.

Remaining gloriously faithful to their sprightly guitar and drum formula along with a guilelessly infectious sizeable dose of rule-free levity, the Spanish twosome’s sound is thankfully not wounded by the departure of their rhythm section last year, the group’s core original line-up of joint guitarist and singers Carlotta Cosials and Ana Perrote reverting effortlessly to former type, bouncing gleeful guitar parts and vocals playfully between each other.

‘Coffee’ was released on 28th February 2024 and comes alongside Hinds’ World Tour announcement. You can catch them live if you can be at the following places on the following dates:

11th-17th March – Austin, Texas – SXSW
18th and 19th March – New York, USA – Baby’s All Right (SOLD OUT)
11th May – Barcelona, Spain – Fango Festival
17th May – Paris, France – Supersonic Records
19th May – Munich, Germany – Theatron Pfingstfestival
21st May – Berlin, Germany – Monarch
26th May (matinee and evening shows) – Brighton, England – Prince Albert
27th and 28th May – London, England – The Lower Third

Have a watch of the track’s video below:

Kings of Leon – Mustang

To say ‘Mustang’ is a return to form for Kings of Leon would be a bit harsh. The Followill clan’s history is familiar to anyone with a vague interest in whatever could be termed alternative-rock – three stupendous albums, one mega single (‘Sex On Fire’ for the unaware) followed by a decade and a half selling out stadiums, but it’s felt like the weight of ultra-success has weighed down heavy on much of their output since.

The first single off of soon to be released LP ‘Can We Please Have Fun’ finds the Nashville garage and blues addled quartet galloping along on a wind of rejuvenation, marking their fresh signing to Capitol Records. Lesser bands may have seen such a moment as an occasion to force out another U2 level FM-rock monster, but KOL have grasped the opportunity to harness the cocky Southern American charm that made us all take notice to begin with.

Perfectly witty and barely-sensical near-spoken Lou Reed style verses find singer Caleb Followill carrying out light vandalism of Sylvan Park in the group’s hometown, getting hot under the collar from a risqué mag in an office loo and feeling nonplussed about stumbling into a back street operating theatre, over Southern American rock and psychedelic guitar flourishes. The rousing leviathan of a chorus poses a more brash, less existential quandary than when their 00’s contemporaries The Killers asked “Are we human or are we dancer?” posing their own accusatory and direct shape-up challenge: “Are you a mustang or a kitty?”. To say ‘Mustang’ is a return to form wouldn’t be fair as Kings of Leon have been back on top since their ‘Mechanical Bull’ LP came out but it’s fair to say this is the band at absolute peak performance.

To mark the album release, Kings of Leon are embarking on a world tour with support from The Vaccines and Phantogram, stopping off in the UK, Europe and America. Tickets are available to purchase now from the band’s website.

‘Mustang’ is produced by the very in vogue and in demand Kid Harpoon. The single is available to stream everywhere now and the album ‘Can We Please Have Fun’ is due for release on 10^th May 2024. You can see the video for ‘Mustang’ below:

Silent Forum – Domestic Majestic

Modernity is an absurd thing. Whilst, within this post-covid landscape, human beings work isolated in their homes, all they really want is connection and to feel OK in ways that former generations were able to take for granted. On their second album ‘Domestic Majestic’, Silent Forum drill down deeper into this sentiment, taking in self-help, yoga poses, shoddy hotels in Folkestone and cataloguing tax receipts with loved ones.

There’s a grand lineage of bands finding the magic in the everyday and it appears to be a rather British thing, reaching back to ‘The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society’, Blur’s trilogy of ‘Modern Life Is Rubbish’, ‘Parklife’ and ‘The Great Escape’, even now groups like Sports Team document humdrum small-town goings-on. Silent Forum fuse that approach on to Foals and Everything Everything type post-punk art-rock.

With wry, observational humour, the record’s third single, ‘Here’s the Email’, analyses the WFH life, forced cyber connections in silo, and ‘Treat Yourself’ notes, to uplifting, distortion drenched guitar “I have the luxury to feel sorry for myself/Why don’t you treat yourself to a little self-help/You matter so much, you don’t matter, you matter”, both fetishising and appreciating the rich wellbeing industry.

Most recent single ‘Yes Man’ is math-rock interjected with solid guitar solos, singer Richard Birt-Wiggins bemoans his character’s agreeability, then comes up with the common-sense but inspired adage: “You will spend your life unintentionally annoying people, so be tolerant/ You’re bound to spend your life unintentionally offending people, so calm down”.

The closest ‘Domestic Majestic’ comes to actually sounding like Blur is on the insincere text message lead ‘U OK’, which takes the britpop lads’ eponymous titled album’s buzzsaw guitar sound and smudges it into ‘Oily Water’ to fantastic effect. The album’s tender moments are some of it’s finest, ‘Petrol Station Flowers’ spaced out, haunted rhythms and simple domestic bliss, and ‘Little Bird’ blossoms introspection through a glittering melody.

‘Domestic Majestic’ does what it says on the tin, paints the domestic as majestic, finds the macro in the micro and supplies some mega textured pop-post-punk tunes.

‘Domestic Majestic’ was released on 23rd February through Libertino Records and you can buy it over on Silent Forum’s bandcamp, as well as stream it wherever you get your tunes.

We’ve put the video of ‘Yes Man’ down below for you to have a watch, if you wanna. You probably should, it’s ace:

Catfish and the Bottlemen – Showtime

The fate of Catfish and the Bottlemen has been clouded in mystery since the North Wales band appeared to implode at some point in 2020, with their considerable fanbase left crying into the void of conjecture, armed only with claims that their heroes are on hiatus. So it was with sheer relief that curious flyers recently started popping up with the group’s name on and the scrawled word ‘Showtime’, small clues to the release of their bop of a comeback single.

Van McCann and co’s returning record is no reinvention of the wheel, but then we wouldn’t want it to be. Since their inception the Llandudno natives have purely offered robust slabs of powerful indie rock with minimal bells and whistles (hell they’ve never even had a song title made up of more than one word), stealthily surging to the top of the alt-rock pantheon on that basis alone and we’re pleased to say it looks as if nothing’s changed, even with a severely depleted line-up.

The track is the urgent expression of a band limbering up for comeback, which for them is crowned by headlining the 2024 Reading and Leeds festival main stage, the frontman’s ever-youthful yap considering the swiftness of fame’s rise and fall: “Don’t you blink or miss, it’s your time/ Before you know it’s going gone and that’s life”, perky guitars storming ever onward as the singer gleefully declares “I love that shit!”. A contemplative, almost gospel, piano outro signals that something may have shifted slightly this time around, but we’re not reading too much into that, remaining pretty confident that indie-rock radio stations across the nation will have no qualms welcoming the boys back to the top of their playlists.

‘Showtime’ was produced by Dave Sardy (Oasis, Fall Out Boy, The Who) and marks the group’s first release from their forthcoming LP. As well as headlining Reading and Leeds they’ve also announced major shows at Cardiff Castle on 19th July and Edinburgh Summer Sessions on August 24th during the summer of 2024. Tickets for both dates go on pre-release sale to official mailing list members at 10am on Tuesday 27th February and general sale at 10am on Friday 1st March.

Have a watch and listen to the single on the Youtube link below:

Sister Envy – Mourning Sickness

It’s an immense scene to capture, the early hours of dawn when a bright new morning is waking, a fresh world is outside the window, peeping in through a crack in the curtains, but either due to anxiety, drink, regret or the realisation that a monumental Saturday night has ended, the new day is struck through with a doom. North Wales’ newest psychedelic grungers Sister Envy manage to take a snapshot of the picture perfectly, the harmonic sound of a Sunday sun up beautifully juxtaposed with begrudged vocals wallowing in an aching morn.

‘Mourning Sickness’ sees a mesmerising intro of chiming, murky but splendiferous guitar soundtrack singer Kameron Joliffe’s drawled vocals, all of which breaks away a minute or so in to allow for a renewal of delicate guitar strums, lolling drums and a whole new atmosphere of exquisite haze. Just to add in an extra layer of awe, the group have revealed they wrote the track when they were but 16 year old wunderkinds.

Having recently signed to North Wales label Yr Wyddfa Records, Snowdonia, Sister Envy’s debut single is produced by Owain Ginsberg (Hippies vs Ghosts) and Scott Marsden (Holy Coves). The quartet have a packed twelve months in store, with a string of single releases and live shows in the works – including a debut set at the 2024 Focus Wales showcase.

‘Mourning Sickness’ is out now to hear and purchase on Bandcamp and will be available to stream on all of the streaming services this coming Friday 23rd February. We’ve put the single for you to hear on Bandcamp right now below:

WRKHOUSE – Getaway

If you like a sure and certain ominous, dark groove with your course, fuzzy guitar and celestial synths, then WRKHOUSE are the lads you’ve been waiting ever patiently for. Their debut single ‘Getaway’ sees them bringing the aforementioned elements, topped off with a treacle-smooth, soulful melody, not unlike Manchester electronic-pop maestros Hurts with a grittier, more abrasive edge.

Having discarded a previous moniker (Lewys) and spent three years touring their rejuvenated wares across the width and breadth of the UK, the North Wales foursome appear to have conjured up enough hard-hitting, bass-lead, passion-packed numbers to start setting them free from the confines of sweaty gig venues to the wider music listening world and if the rest of their arsenal is as strong as this initial effort then we reckon the sky’s the limit for them.

‘Getaway’ was released on Friday 9th February 2024 and is available to hear on all of the streaming platforms. We’ve put a bandcamp link so you can hear the whole track below. If you like what you hear you can always bung them a quid to download and own it. Just, y’know, have a think about it:

Grace Calver – Will U Be Mine?

Essex multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter and all round DIY popstar Grace Calver’s musical oeuvre to date has been bursting with forlorn, yet still seriously catchy, bubblegum tunes mulling over a dysfunctional love life, but with new single ‘Will U Be Mine?’ it seems the skies are getting brighter as she turns up the sun, the performer beckoning us into her “Crush Era” with a single she describes as ‘the cheesy one’.

And if by cheesy she means astoundingly upbeat, still obsessing over boys (this time tinged with much more hopeful shades than despair), a killer chorus, punk-pop guitars and a bouncy, cheeky synth-line, then yeah, this is cheesy. But if you can’t be cheesy as a 20 year old popstar then when can you be? Earnest guitars and enthusiastic drumming ensure Grace remains more Baby Queen and Maisie Peters than Little Mix or Kelly Clarkson, although we actually don’t think she minds which side of the credible fence she falls on.

Check out the single’s artwork as well, capitalising on the single’s chiptune inspired, synth-driven stylings and rendering Calver as a Scott Pilgrim type video game heroine.

‘Will U Be Mine?’ was released on 2nd February 2024 and you can find it wherever you get your music. We’ve put the Spotify link for you below: