Pam Ross just released her brand-new single, “Who’s Gonna Save You?” delivering one of her most powerful and thought-provoking songs to date. Built around a driving roots-rock foundation and an unforgettable chorus, “Who’s Gonna Save You?” explores the difficult reality of self-destruction, personal accountability, and the moments when we are forced to confront our own choices. The song’s striking refrain asks a question many people spend a lifetime avoiding: “God might save you from someone else, but who’s gonna save you from yourself?”
The recording features, Pam Ross – Acoustic rhythm guitar, lead vocals, backing vocals, keyboards, and organ - Yvan Petit – Lead guitar and electric rhythm guitar - FJ Ventre – Bass - George Hindenach – Drums and percussion. The track was produced by Pam Ross and FJ Ventre, with mixing and mastering by Marc Frigo in Nashville, Tennessee.
Over the past several years, Pam has built a reputation as one of independent music’s most consistent and authentic voices, earning recognition for her heartfelt songwriting, compelling performances, and growing success on radio and streaming platforms. “Who’s Gonna Save You?” continues that tradition while showcasing a more introspective and emotionally charged side of her artistry.
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The new album Everyone & No One released this weekend, comes six years on from Brigadoon’s widely acclaimed debut LP, Itch Factor. The new album is more of the same, but different. Itch Factor’s intimate, late-night, melancholy feel is retained, as is the love of melody, harmony and layered vocals and guitar to create a spectral sonic mood.
But Everyone & No One is a decisive evolution: accents from keyboards and electric guitar play a greater role, for example. This is also an exercise in precision and brevity compared to the 15-track Itch Factor. For Everyone & No One, Smith gave himself a rule: if a song goes longer than three minutes it’s outstayed its welcome. That was hard to stick to, and several tracks go beyond that (particularly the experimental drone-opus, “Under the Clock Dirge”), but these songs strive for economy and elegance, as seen in leading tracks “Maya Sleeps & Dreams”, “Extra Moons” and “Master of Cobwebs”.
As with Itch Factor, the album embraces the DIY folk spirit, retaining a slightly scruffy aesthetic in keeping with its recording environment. Replacing a shack in the hills behind Byron Bay, where Itch Factor was recorded, is a freezing garage in the Blue Mountains (the scurryings of the resident possum being audible on some songs).
With Everyone & No One, Smith sticks close to his key influences – 1960s and ’70s psych-folk ranging from the Incredible String Band to David Crosby to Gary Higgins to Tim Buckley to Mark Fry. Additional inspiration for the album came from the likes of Robyn Hitchcock, Bobb Trimble, Beck, The Chills, John Grant and Richard Dawson.
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Skep Wax (who have introduced us to some fabulous artists) have just released the first single "Two Steps At A Time" by indie pop supergroup Railcard, from their debut album of the same name, featuring ex-members of Dolly Mixture and Death In Vegas and current members of Heavenly. As a taster for the album the single is gorgeous, quirky and oh so catchy, seriously this is a massive tease for the album, about which we have the following thoughts from Skep Wax.
"You have to wonder why Railcard took so long to be born: their debut album feels like it should have been in your collection for years. But it wasn’t until 2025 that Rachel Love (Dolly Mixture), Ian Button and Peter Momtchiloff (Heavenly) met at a gig, realised that they were exactly the same age, and decided that this was an excellent reason to form a new band."
"The shared history, the same pop references, the parallel lives… Railcard had to happen, and there was no time to lose. Two Steps At A Time - the album title and theme song - express exactly how quickly Railcard have worked since then - jumping over pavement cracks and whistling past graveyards to get these songs written, recorded and released while they are still sweet and fresh."
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Nashville country artist Maddie Lenhart has released her second single "Empty Room" from her upcoming EP releasing October 2, 2026. As the second release from her upcoming debut EP, “Empty Room” finds Maddie Lenhart leaning further into the classic country influences that have long shaped her artistry. Produced by Brad Hill (Maren Morris, Brothers Osborne) and written by Lenhart and Justin Cross, the song pairs warm dobro, fiddle, organ, and layered harmonies with a heartbreaking story of loving someone whose absence is felt even when they’re standing right in front of you.
Lenhart immediately transports listeners into the song’s world, opening with, “Lights come up glittering red and gold / I feel the kick of the drum echo off the back wall / Through the flickering and the smoke / I can make out just enough / To know that I’m alone.” The scene is vivid and cinematic, but it’s the following realization that gives it its emotional weight: “It’s something that I should be used to now / But hell, it still keeps burning me out.” In just a few lines, Lenhart reveals this isn’t a fleeting moment of loneliness – it’s the familiar ache of continually showing up for someone who no longer meets her halfway.
That emotional foundation makes the chorus all the more powerful: “Loving you’s like playing to an empty room / I keep pourin’ out my heart, but what good does it do? / I could walk off this stage, nobody’s listening / I could leave you, you wouldn’t ask me to stay / You don’t give a damn, and I shouldn’t like I do / ’Cause loving you, loving you, loving you / Is like playing to an empty room.”
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Mr. Novembre new single “Mountains, Hope.”, is an expansive alt-folk meditation on grief, surrender, and finding peace on the other side of emotional exhaustion. Built around delicate fingerpicked guitar, sweeping strings, and a slow-burning sense of release, the song invites you to sit with life's heaviest moments rather than rush past them. It feels like the quiet after the storm. Like setting down a burden you've carried for too long. Like discovering that hope doesn't always arrive through holding on, it can begin by letting go.
At its heart, “Mountains, Hope.” offers a reminder many of us need to hear: “Love was all I had to give - But my tank is empty - There's nothing left in me”
With each verse, the song moves gently from depletion toward acceptance. What begins as a confession slowly transforms into an embrace of stillness, where healing comes not from reaching the summit, but from finding peace with where you stand. This isn't a song about giving up. It's about recognising that sometimes the bravest thing you can do is stop fighting what cannot be changed. This is a taste of the album 'Petrichor' due August 14 2026.
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| Photo - James J. Robinson |
Pain Gain - Pain Gain (Album).
Pain Gain, the collaborative project of Chloe Kaul (Kllo), Hamish Lefevre (SWIM), and Samuel Cooke (CRUSH3d), have released their self-titled debut album Pain Gain (via Play It Again Sam/PIAS). Formed in 2023, Pain Gain began as a deliberate left turn. Shedding their established electronic identities, Kaul, Lefevre and Cooke retreated to the beachside forests of southern Australia, armed with guitars, modular synths and a tape recorder. What began as a temporary escape soon evolved into something far more profound: a complete recalibration of sound, process and purpose. The result is Pain Gain, a debut album that trades velocity for gravity, moving fluidly between indie rock melodrama and expansive pop balladry while rejecting genre as a fixed idea.
That philosophy, that pain can be instructive and even transformative, runs throughout Pain Gain’s work. Embracing a tactile, imperfect process, the band favored single takes, analogue experimentation, and the accidental beauty of mistakes. Songs emerged organically: melodies drifting through kitchen conversations, lyrics shaped by late-night reflections, and ideas bleeding across rooms in a house that became a living, breathing studio.
Across the project, vocalist Chloe Kaul delivers lyrics that cut deep, exploring personal upheaval with unflinching honesty, while the band’s collaborative dynamic ensures no single voice dominates and each member shapes the music with equal weight and intent. It’s three distinct voices finding unity in vulnerability and shared experience as they explain: "We went away together with only the intention of starting something new, we never expected that we would end up not only with an album, but one that feels as cohesive and collectively personal as this. It's a record that looks for beauty in friction, and finding a new start in the wreckage of something past"
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