Melbourne rock veterans Nick Barker and the Reptiles are back with a blistering new single, ‘Blood Nose,’ out now via Golden Robot Records. A raw, riff-driven track soaked in 70s-style swagger, 'Blood Nose’ delivers a punch - both musically and thematically.
Written by Nick Barker, the track was inspired by a story he read about a social media influencer whose carefully curated world came crashing down. “‘Blood Nose’ can mean a lot of things - a real one, a loss in battle, or just a humiliating moment,” Barker explains. “This one’s about the last two. All kinds of ways to take damage.”
With its stripped-back production and live-to-tape energy, ‘Blood Nose’ captures the band's signature no-frills approach - loud, loose, and loaded with grit. “We had the riff, the idea, and just went for it, live in the room. Not much to it. We love it,” Barker says.
‘Blood Nose’ is the first new music from the band in over a decade and marks a thunderous return to form. Fans can stream the track now on all major platforms.
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The second single to be taken from the new album, Lucky Day is a funky song on the subject of scam phone calls. Tommy Keyes was the keyboard player for Sidewinder, a mainstay of the Dublin rock scene in the late 1970s, and wrote many of their most popular songs.
Nearly 40 years later, after a career outside music that left no time for gigging, he returned with a repertoire of great songs that defy categorisation. Rock? Pop? Blues? “It’s 1970s singer-songwriter music”, he says, “because that’s what I am.” His biggest chart success to date came in July 2022 when Suzi Quatro (Teenage Discos ’73) hit No 1 in the overall iTunes chart (all genres). This Is the Song We Were Singing gave him another iTunes No 1 in the pop chart is February 2024.
Recorded with some of Ireland’s greatest session musicians, his albums are very different from anything else that’s being released these days, but sample some of the songs and you are guaranteed to be hooked.
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The summer of Malena's 27th birthday was a defining one. She left her job to pursue music full-time, took her first solo road trip to commemorate that leap of faith, and made the life-changing decision to stop drinking. Just before the turn of the season, she began writing songs again, and 27 in Maine was born.
The EP captures that coming of age as an adult moment: the clarity of "18," the internal tug-of-war of "Betray Myself," the yearning of "Maybe," the stillness and uncertainty of "Paralyzed," and the realization of "27 in Maine (The Ride)." "It felt like my puzzle pieces were beginning to find their places," Malena says, but the number of pieces was indefinite."
Produced by Brian Owens, and featuring engineers Jay Newland (Norah Jones' Come Away With Me) and Boo Mitchell (Royal Studios, Memphis), 27 in Maine bridges pop, folk, soul, and jazz. It's a seamless reflection of Malena's own genre-fluid voice.
Beyond its sonic beauty, the EP carries heartfelt stories at every corner. Following singles "18," "Betray Myself," "Maybe," and "Paralyzed," the full EP arrives as Malena's debut declaration as a storytelling artist, a reflection of her growth and her voice. "My hope is that people who need these songs the most will hear them," she says. "And that anyone who connects with them knows they're not alone."
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Great Lakes’ Ben Crum returns with a fantastic new album, Don’t Swim Too Close. Over 25 years and eight records, Crum has built a reputation for sharp songwriting and interesting stylistic shifts. Don’t Swim Too Close is no exception, as Crum draws from a classic rock tradition, echoing both the Americana spirit of Neil Young and The Band and the proto-indie rock of Television and the Velvet Underground.
Immediately accessible, its songs land with the ease of lived-in classics. Themes of empathy and regret (“Carry the Message”), mental health struggles (“Don’t Swim Too Close”), disillusionment (“Meant to Fly”), and the lone journey of the writer (“On the Way Back”) weave through the record. But this isn’t a bleak listen. Crum’s dry, gallows humor bubbles up throughout, balancing heaviness with wit.
He’s the kind of writer who can sing, “the future’s out there, waiting like an open grave,” and leave you smirking instead of sinking—or deadpan, “there’s nothing sexy about Spread Eagle, Wisconsin, or Tight squeeze, Virginia.” The characters in Crum’s songs are soul-searching, making for a compelling and thought-provoking listen. But there’s tenderness too: “Seeing Through Her” is a love song without pretense, while “Song for the Old Man” pays moving tribute to Crum’s late father. The closing track, “Are We Here Accidentally,” takes on existential purpose—or the lack thereof—in the face of life’s mundane demands: “there’s always someone on the phone / always someone we’re supposed to owe / well, I guess, if you say so.”
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At Baron Lane is a four-piece indie band based between Zurich and Lachen, Switzerland. Since celebrating the release of their debut album in Paradise in 2019 at Amboss Rampe in Zurich, the band has continuously refined their songwriting and tested it live at countless shows. The quartet has performed at renowned venues such as Schüür Luzern, Exil Club Zurich, and Werk21 at Dynamo Zurich. With their single Future-Men, released in June 2025, the band gained their first airplay on various indie radio stations—both in Switzerland (including Kanal K, Radio Lora, Radio4tng, and Radio15) and internationally (including RTA Music [Italy], Eastcoast FM [USA], and Radiofabrik [Austria]).
Throughout the album, the band explores a wide range of musical influences. The catchy, pop-infused chorus of Right Hand Man is already in rotation on Radio15. The Beatles-inspired ballad Change begins with gentle vocals over warm piano chords, builds into an anthemic saxophone solo, and has already aired on Radio Rocher.
Cult is a rocking crowd favorite, where various characters describe how they were recruited by Lenny, all wrapped in a sea-shanty-inspired chorus. Don’t miss the Swiss-German intro of Chinotto am Meer, which leads into a high-energy saxophone solo.
In the gospel-tinged Sunday Shoes and the indie-pop track Faster (with Bossa Nova influences), it almost feels like Lenny might truly change the world. But the movement soon loses momentum. The jazzy Follow the Hypebeast delivers sharp critique, and in the psychedelic progressive-rock track The Moon is the Answer, even the revolutionary himself loses the strength to pursue his goals.
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| Photo - Lamia Karic |
Swedish singer-songwriter Winona Oak embarks on a new era today with her powerful new single ‘Do You Hate Me Now’ out now via Nettwerk. Winona released her EP ‘Salt’ this spring, which was a poignant personal documentation of her physical and emotional states. Throughout this year, she has been working on new music and a progression in her raw and unvarnished sound, whilst still writing about the highs and lows of life; loss and repair, heartbreak and love, resistance and patience.
With her new single ‘Do You Hate Me Now’, she introduces a brand-new era of her music. The song is a cinematic and heartfelt ballad, opening delicately with atmospheric piano before building into an epic chorus that lets her emotive voice shine.
Winona says, “This song lives in that fragile space between love and goodbye – when you’re still holding onto the good memories even as the bad ones start to weigh more. You remember the warmth, the way it once felt safe – but now the air feels heavier, the silence sharper. It’s about realizing love shouldn’t feel like walking on glass, or like losing yourself a little more each day. It’s knowing you’re not walking away to hurt them, but because staying would mean losing the last pieces of yourself you still recognise. So, you take one last look, one last breath, and you leave – not because you stopped loving them, but because something in you finally believes there’s a softer, truer kind of love wating for you somewhere.”
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