Clever, witty lyricism in alternative music is a neglected and underrated art in 2023, with wilfully indecipherable vocals often swamped in shoegaze feedback. We’re pretty damn thrilled, then, that Spector’s new single ‘The Notion’ has frontman Fred Macpherson on fine, dourly witty form, taking an introspective view of bottling up feelings and some weird, jarring loft parties with the sobering inquiry “What happens after the afters?”.
Mesmerising guitar loops and slinky drums form the ideal arrangement for long-time companion of the band, Dev Hynes (Blood Orange), to drop in a lusciously scratchy Weezer-esque solo to top off the London indie-adepts’ demurely gleaming comeback.
‘The Notion’ was released on 15th August 2023 and is available to hear on all of the streaming services as we speak. We’ve put the Spotify link for you below:
From ‘Waiting For Something’s first full-blown, rampaging, US grunge guitar bursts, it’s clear that we’re dealing with some intense, old school alt-rock here from London based solo artiste Jaws The Shark aka Olly Bailey. With all the sure-fire gusto of Foo Fighters at their college-rock finest, the singer-guitarist’s psalm to anticipation and falling prone to Cupid’s darts is as assured and meaty as the best of them.
Colossal, heavy duty riffs and boisterous drumming cloak what essentially is a solid, raw tune, as the Sega Megadrive ten pin bowling sound effects at the track’s start signal what we later on verify to be true, that this is a 10/10 strike of a record.
‘Waiting For Something’ is the latest track to be released from Jaws The Shark’s soon-to-be-released third EP, out last week – 9th August 2023. We recommend you check out his last top effort too, ‘Suff City’. You can find a handy little Spotify link to ‘Waiting For Something’ below:
Sibling fronted Maesteg dirty pop professionals Pseudo Cool have been busy tinkering away in the studio and the first day-glo fruit of their punkish labour is their first release of 2023, ‘Sharp’s Catching Waves’, a strikingly effervescent tribute to Aberafan-born 1970s Welsh surfing heavyweight Linda Sharp.
Surf pop and punk rock have been comfortable classmates since the Ramones made their mark in Sharp’s own decade and Pseudo Cool reaffirm that spectacular alliance with spiky guitar, rat-a-tat drumming and frisky melody, proclaiming the female boarder’s fearlessly pioneering achievements in a world, fifty years ago, where insecure blokes actively discouraged women from jumping atop the waves and taking part.
Sharp went on to show them all up and win the European surfing championships twice, the British championships ten times, the Welsh championships 19 times and her South Welsh pop-fiend descendants have done her proud.
‘Sharp’s Catching Waves’ was released on Friday 11th August 2023 on all streaming platforms. We’ve put a link to the track on Spotify for you below. Have a listen, it’s pretty chuffing ace.
Also, if you’re a fan of this, you should probably give Angel Hotel a listen. Just saying.
A short moment after forming in August 2020, Nottinghamshire based duo Vona Vella launched their debut single, the blissed out, relaxed summer melody ‘Sun’. The record went swiftly viral, bolstered by a remix by ambient tunesters Morcheeba, an unimaginable feat for a group only just in their infancy. So where next to go after that?
After signing to Peter Doherty’s label Strap Originals and releasing the sumptuous ‘Go Outside Forever’ EP, not ones to ever let the grass grow under their feet, Dan Cunningham and Izzy Davis’ debut album sees the pair drift ever so slightly away from their sun-soaked, jazzy roots and further into the alt-pop realm.
The bittersweet, dreamy quality remains intact – features inherent in whatever Vona Vella seem to create, making them a Midlands version of Angus and Julia Stone, but now fleshed out over 12 ethereal tracks that waft between heartbreak, dizzying love and back again.
Singles-wise, the eponymously titled record has already produced some ginormous sounding songs in ‘Divine’,‘Thought We Were Falling In Love’ and ‘Intertwined’, all of which capitalise on the woozy romanticism of Izzy and Dan’s combined prodigious talents building up a beatifically insular world, but tucked away in the self-titled LP’s subtle corners are the compelling ‘Ariel’, seeing Cunningham’s voice metamorphosise into becoming Sufjan Stevens-esque and the acoustic ‘Kim’, in which Davis tells the story of a girl forced to dull her shine.
‘Anchor’ is a weighty number with Dan at the lead again supported by Izzy’s enchanting backing and a strong refrain reaching Lewis Capaldi and Dermot Kennedy heights, but the waltzy ‘I Would Do Anything You Want Me To’ and sprightly ‘Telephones’, replete with 1930s film After The Thin Man sample (“You can’t indefinitely go on caring for someone who doesn’t care for you, can you?” / “Well it’s been done…”) hold the understated charm of Vona Vella’s debut, laying out the bareboned gamut of beautiful and ugly human behaviour in relationships using a comprehensive host of musical styles.
Rounding things off by revisiting their formative jazz-tinted mode, final song – the amaranthine ‘Roll Into Forever’ adds a robust dose of folk sensibility into their initial mix, creating the ideal, misty-eyed outro to the twosome’s very excellent debut.
The debut single proper from Welsh girl in Manchester Megan Wyn is an absolute corker! Those folk keeping their eyes on the emerging music scene have likely noted that Wyn has spent the past two years putting out music and playing venues all over the UK but the release of ‘You Don’t Get It’ sees the singer songwriter take her shot for the big time with simply her best song yet.
With a voice as breathy and distinctive as PJ Harvey, Chrissie Hynde or Lia Metcalfe of The Mysterines and composition skills a guitarist ten years her senior would covet, the 18 year old gets reflective, considering her move from her small hometown in Anglesey to the bustle of Manchester and a grander picture of new beginnings, with viscerally stirring and emotive results.
‘You Don’t Get It’ was released on 4th August 2023 so you can hear it on all of the streaming platforms right now. Take a listen on the Spotify link below:
Why do boys want to be in bands? And what are fans crying for when they holler at their heroes? PREGOBLIN are fucked if they know, but the boys keep trying to shoot their shot and us fans keep on shouting, ad infinitum and forever.
PREGOBLIN is Fat White Family collaborator and ex-The Saudis member Alex Sebley and on new song ‘These Hands AKA Danny Knife’ the artist teams up with Peter Doherty (Libertines, Babyshambles, you know him) to, in a roundabout way, cross-examine extremes of youthful uncertainty, starry-eyed ambitious escapism and eventual disillusionment in the minds of wannabe and bonafide rock stars, all in the confines of a magnificently chipper indie rock tune.
Spikily mischievous guitar lines and recurrent, jovial synth keeps the mood playful as the dual singers share vocal duties, building up a theoretical rock idol alter-ego identity to shield behind named Danny Knife, sounding flummoxed as to why anyone would want to be in their shoes and in turn flummoxed as to why they wanted to get up onstage in the first place.
‘These Hands AKA Danny Knife’ was released on Friday 28th July 2023 on Strap Originals records. You can see the official promo video right now, featuring Alex and Peter taking a stroll with the Libertines singer’s pair of hounds:
Transatlantic minimalist blues duo The Killshave got back together after a seven year hiatus, announcing their reformation with a two single release – ‘New York’ and ‘LA Hex’, sounding as muddied and bloodied as they ever did before.
‘New York’ is an Alison Mossheart lead composition of ominous bass rumbles, low beats, rat-a-tat-tat bursts of sleazy, sexy guitar chugs and a tempestuous vocal take from the singer telling a poisoned story of dark, violent love and desperation in the US metropolis.
‘LA Hex’ is otherworldly and lazy with a slow paced, cinematic spoken word discourse from Mossheart and fellow songsmith Jamie Hince, witchily belying a creeping melody that finally breaks out into an exalting gospel chorus. Utterly sordid and utterly vital.
Both ‘New York’ and ‘LA Hex’ were released on 25th July 2023 through Domino Records and you can buy 7″ versions of each of them right now, if you’re that taken with them. There are also videos out for both tracks. We’ve included both YouTube vids below for your viewing thrill:
Short, sharp and fucking vicious. If we could leave the review there, we would. As it goes we need to pad things out a bit more, and Shackles of Shame’s‘On Tick’ deserves a few more words anyway. With a firm reputation under their belts on the Cardiff alt-music scene, the cassock attired post-punk four-piece have made sure their long awaited debut single’s a punchy statement of intent.
Calling out pretty much everyone for fucking themselves over and living lives of debt slavery, as well those susceptible to risky methods of acquiring illicit substances, frontman Cal Ellis evangelizes blunt truths to a tune that’s part psych-rock’n’roll, part fuzzed up, scuzzy grunge, somehow managing to bring on the party whilst cutting a whole culture down to a humbly exposed size.
If you’ve seen us bang on about Fate Of The Sun on this blog and been into them then we reckon you’ll wanna give this a listen.
‘On Tick’ is the first track to be released from Shackles Of Shame’s soon-to-be-released EP ‘The Recession Sessions’ and was released on Wasabi Overload Records, 22nd July. Have a listen on the Spotify link below:
The newly sober grand-priest of Madchester and former Happy Mondays frontman Shaun Ryder has teamed back up with sometime bandmate and fellow Mancunian rapper – Kermit, to create another batch of swaggering new Black Grape songs after six years away, with ‘Milk’ being their latest spellbindingly pulsating offering.
Containing all the ingredients of their 90s bevvy of hits, both frontmen deliver high-intensity, unpretentious rap wordplay digging into their decision to quit intoxicants, along with beguiling electronics, some beefy bass and a frankly metaphysical guitar riff. More straight-up shamelessly danceable than ‘Kelly’s Heroes’ but unmistakably Black Grape all the same.
The track’s produced by classic producer Youth (The Verve, Embrace, The Orb) and remember that metaphysical guitar we mentioned? That’s played by Francesco Buffone from The Gulps.
Black Grape’s new album ‘Orange Head’ is due out on 3rd November 2023 through DGAFF records and available to pre-order now.The track list is below:
1. Dirt 2. Pimp Wars 3. Button Eyes 4. Quincy 5. In The Ground 6. Loser 7. Milk 8. Panda 9. Self Harm 10. Sex on the Beach
‘Milk’ was released on 25th July 2023 and you can hear it on all of the streaming platforms now. We’ve popped the Spotify link down below for you:
Existential rumination is the order of the day on superb Isle of Wight indie pop-punks Coach Party’s latest release. Rather than dress up their existence-related observation in metaphor and allegory, the foursome come straight out asking ‘What’s the point in life’ and seem rather content to not have any answers.
Strong bass and ferocious drums make way for vocalist Jess Eastwood’s contentedly relaxed espousals (“I’ll do what I want, when I want, yeah I’ll do it, everything’s fine, I’ll get round to it”) to a playful melody and chirping guitar with a vivacious chorus that makes the potentially doom-laden portent of “We’re all gonna die. What’s the point in life, if we all die?” sound alarmingly life-affirming.
Coach Party’s debut album is due out on 8th September viaChess Club records. You can pre-order it on all of the snazzy LP bundles right now. ‘What’s The Point In Life’ is the fourth single to be taken from the album so far, along with ‘Born Leader’,‘All I Wanna Do Is Hate’ and ‘Micro Aggression’.
You can check out the official music video for ‘What’s The Point In Life’ on the YouTube link below:
Edge of Arcady 