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| Photo - Steve Gullick |
Marking a decade of Nothing But Thieves last year, with four albums, billions of streams, thousands of worldwide live shows and a global dedicated fanbase, the Southend five-piece made their musical return recently with new single ‘Evolution’ and the title-track of their forthcoming 5th record ‘Stray Dogs’ released on 25th September via RCA/Sony Music. The band continue to showcase their versatility and ambition with new single ‘Baby Kool (Evelyn)’, which is out now.
‘Baby Kool (Evelyn)’ sees the band channel shared influences of Nirvana, Sonic Youth and The Pixies into a 90s grunge and indie rock inspired song, which received its global first play at BBC Radio 1’s Hottest Record last night. The anthemic track is a progressive alt-rock song that fluctuates in both atmosphere and intensity, showcasing Conor Mason’s full vocal breadth and building to a memorable melodic chorus. Thematically referencing the community of music and fandom through the metaphors of loneliness, connection and euphoria, the song is accompanied by a surreal 90s inspired video by Maxim Kelly (Hot Chip, Shame) featuring a prominent ‘pink man’ character and Evelyn the (stray) dog. The band says,
“This one felt like we wandered back into Dom's garage, where the band started. It's got one foot in glam and the other in grunge. Those two worlds’ probably shouldn't get along, which is maybe why they did. We often find that's where the interesting stuff is.”
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| Photo - Igor Prato Luna |
Liverpool folk singer-songwriter Grace Elizabeth Harvey announces a new EP Songs Of Devotion, out 16th October and shares lead single 'The Dream Of Common Language'. The new EP will mark Harvey's first body of work since her spring 2025 debut EP Other Faith. Inspired by discovering Adrienne Rich's poetry collection The Dream of a Common Language in a charity shop, new single 'The Dream Of Common Language' opens conversationally over fingerpicked acoustic guitar before blooming into a sprawling instrumental passage.
Scattered with fragmented images of cigarette papers, hazel-coloured eyes and cold telephone lines, both the single and forthcoming EP were recorded live at producer Gus White's residential studio, The Barn, alongside double bassist Sam Crooks and drummer Lloyd Haines. Mixed and mastered to tape, birdsong drifts through open windows as Harvey's delicate - almost spoken-word delivery - sits at the centre of a performance shaped by both the sound of language and its meaning; Harvey's lyrics balancing unusual, ambiguous phrasing with strikingly precise imagery, allowing the cadence of words to become part of the music itself.
Harvey said: "It’s a song about giving up on love to pursue the search for deeper philosophical understanding, in the face of language and its failures. The dream of a common language is a dream to be seen, to be understood and to rely on words to communicate what we feel and desire. It appears to us when the blind faith we have in others, often the strongest and most delusional when in love, breaks down, revealing itself as just a dream, a fiction, a wish.
"The song mentions a recurring dream I have where I feel I am screaming but no sound is coming out, or it does and I can’t understand why I am so angry or upset in the dream. I am quite a stoic person, coping with life through fantasy and goodwill, so this is maybe the unconscious outlet for pent up disappointment and injustice."
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“Porcelain Pillars is a love story. One that I encourage you to sit down with, close your eyes and really immerse yourself in”. That is the perfect summary by Piper Butcher about “Porcelain Pillars”, her stunning third release for 2026.
“Porcelain Pillars” is a cinematic dreamscape of lyrical beauty mixed with equally gorgeous melodies and accompanying musicianship and production. Focusing on the beautiful story of Jenny and Jimmy - the two star characters of this narrative - it traces the tale of two people putting their love above everything else. It’s their journey through life, loss and every stop in between. “No relationship is ever perfect, but this song dares to dream of that ‘movie love’ everyone adores”, says Butcher.
Piper Butcher continues to build upon her impressive musical resume with this third single of 2026. Just a week after the release of “Porcelain Pillars”, Butcher heads out on the road with Variety the Children’s Charity as MC and Ambassador for their Backyard Bash, supporting schools and small communities. Keep an ear out for her performing the new single as part of these events. She was also recently announced as a showcasing artist for BIGSOUND 2026 as well as joining Wade Forster’s national tour of Australia later this year.
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| Photo - Si Moore |
Light Years is So So Modern’s latest offering. A collection of songs written in the decade since their last release, the twenty-something-year-old post-punk band have for years defied convention for how a group should operate or sound. Today the band resembles less the four young, unknowing friends who started this journey in the mid-2000s but more an extended family, bound through intersecting lives and close-knit community.
The musical landscape has since overtaken them with speed and saturation, but SSM have stuck to the path of the slow and steady - because time beats everything. Whilst the band’s sound has garnered a reputation for complex, chaotic convergences of guitars, synthesisers and rhythm, the songs in Light Years are about clarity, restraint and simplicity - an acknowledgement and misremembering of the straightforward hardcore punk and pop that inspired them as teenagers.
Short, structured and delivered with earnest power, today’s lead single, ‘Peace Talks’ reflects on coming-of-age within fringe communities - the late 90’s / early 00’s Aotearoa hardcore, DIY & straight-edge scenes, goth flats & anarchist squats - friends are, after all, the family you choose. Light Years represents time, distance and the entanglement of life, although it is unclear if this is in relation to a distant past or the horizon of the future. The limited 12” vinyl release by Flying Nun Records and Holiday Records is accompanied by the illuminating artwork of Lily Paris West.
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The first full album of new music from psychedelic rock pioneers Strawberry Alarm Clock since 1969 is released today. The new album Where's One? returns the band to the pinnacle of the genre they helped to invent, with a lineup unmatched for its authenticity including five original members, and decades of performing and songwriting chemistry on display. Previewed in recent months by the hit indie singles “Monsters,” “Blow Your Mind” and “The Sky Isn't Falling,” Where's One hits record stores in a Deluxe Double LP edition and as a CD, as well as streaming on all digital platforms worldwide.
Unquestionably, the '60s spirit is here. You can hear it immediately in the immaculately sunny a capella harmonies of the opening track “Feel The Love,” as well as in the full record's sparkling instrumental arrangements featuring period-perfect touches of their signature swirling organ, sunshine pop flute, electric sitar, lacerating acid rock guitar and groovy percussion. But as the needle drifts into the second track, the captivatingly ominous “Monsters” (appropriately released as the album's first preview single last Halloween), it becomes obvious that Strawberry Alarm Clock are here not to relive former glories but to push the psych-rock form ever forward with new ideas, fresh sounds, and unexpected reinventions.
It's a revelation driven home by the next track, a dramatic deconstruction of “Day Tripper” that lets listener know to expect the unexpected: in a world of power pop bands trying to sound like The Beatles, the Alarm Clock play The Beatles like Devo plays The Stones, here and on a delightfully skewed reading of “Within You Without You”. By the third track, “White Light” – a musically and emotionally raw journey that blends psychedelia and dream rock with intense, near-metal riffing and stunning harmonies – the restless creativity of SAC in 2026 is abundantly evident, aptly summed up in the opening lyrics: “Where am I going? What will I do when I get there?”
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Freyja Elsy’s new single ‘Another Life’ is released today Friday August 7th. Built around the idea of what might have been, ‘Another Life’ explores the imagined versions of ourselves that exist alongside the choices we have made. The track reflects the strange duality of looking back at paths not taken while knowing that the life we have built is the right one, capturing the distance between who we were, who we are, and who we might have become.
Musically, the track moves from intimate guitar, piano and double bass into a wider arrangement of evolving strings and electronic textures, with the production shifting between restraint and release. ‘Another Life’ is the third single from Freyja’s forthcoming EP to stop the world turning, continuing the project’s movement from memory and anxiety into reflection and change.
The track also marks the first time Freyja has incorporated Cymraeg (the Welsh language) into her songwriting, with a verse inspired by her ongoing study of the language and a subtle reference to Welsh folklore, reflecting the song’s themes of changing seasons, identity and transformation.
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