Foo Fighters — Dave Grohl, Nate Mendel, Chris Shiftlet, Pat Smear, Rami Jaffee and Ilan Rubin — will be releasing their 12th full-length studio album, the Foo Fighters and Oliver Roman co-produced Your Favorite Toy on April 24, 2026 through Roswell Records/RCA Records.
The album was recorded at home and engineered by Roman and mixed by Mark “Spike” Stent and will include the previously released “Asking For a Friend,” and the album’s second and latest single, album title track “Your Favorite Toy.”
“Your Favorite Toy” manages to sound distinctly Foo Fighters, anchored around their unerring knack for remarkably catchy hooks and rousingly anthemic hooks but showcasing what may arguably be the grittiest, nastiest song of their extensive catalog with jagged guitar shards, menacing key stabs weave atop of a relentless, motorik-like pulse while Grohl takes up a much more sardonic vocal tone throughout.
“’Your Favorite Toy’ really was the key that unlocked the tone and energetic direction of the new album,” Dave Grohl says. “We stumbled upon it after experimenting with different sounds and dynamics for over a year, and the day it took shape I knew that we had to follow its lead. It was the fuse to the powder keg of songs we wound up recording for this record. It feels new.”
Chicago-born, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and musician Jack Riley can trace the origins of his music career to when he was five and making music on a thrift-store guitar emblazoned with Kurt Cobain‘s name. Riley moved to New Orleans for college, where dabbled in punk and fell in love with shoegaze before starting the first iteration of Bedridden. The Chicago-born, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and musician recruited Pasadena, CA-born jazz trained Sebastian Duzian (bass) and Claremont, CA-born Nick Pedroza (drums), who grew up on rock, metal and jazz to form a live band.
The first lineup released their debut EP, 2023’s Amateur Heartthrob, a noise-washed blend of shoegaze, DIY and indie rock that Riley says is a “coming-of-age EP — these formative stories about not having a bed, dating, being kind of a jackass. I was making fun of myself a lot.” The EP caught the attention of Julia’s War Recordings‘ Douglas Dulgarian, who then signed the band.
The band relocated to Brooklyn. After relocating, the band recruited Wesley Wolffe (guitar) to complete the band’s lineup as a newly minted quartet. The current incarnation of the band encompasses a patchwork of styles, influences and friends that the band’s Chicago-born, Brooklyn-based frontman has accumulated over the years.
The next iteration in the band’s development and maturation is their full-length debut, the Aron Kobayashi Ritch-produced Moths Strapped To Each Other’s Back. Slated for an April 11, 2025 release through Julia’s War Recordings, the album’s titled is derived from a mysterious missive Riley received on the popular astrology app Co-Star. The 10-song album’s fuzzed out and sometimes gnarly songs sees the band ruminating on dating, drugs and survival. “Last year I was way too reliant on other people — my partner at the time, my friends,” Riley says. “I was strapped to them in a weird way — and flying in circles. This album is about that time.”
“Some of these songs have been around for years,” says Riley, adding that they were recorded last February at Brooklyn’s Studio G. “As opposed to Amateur Heartthrob, we attempted to blend more clean guitars into a driving sound to capture more clarity — one that also sounds live… and raw.”
So far I’ve written about two of the album’s previously released singles”
“Etch,” a woozy yet mournful Dinosaur Jr.-like ripper built around fuzzy power chords, rousingly anthemic, mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses and thunderous drumming that’s anchored around a seething, simmering anger that inspires a daydream about punching someone in the jaw. “‘Etch’ was a rhythmic accident that didn’t stem from any direct inspirations,”Riley explains. “The irregular triplet line came to me first and sounded somber, yet hostile. It lent itself well to phrases I had written not about heartbreak, but about the subsequent temper that it had induced. I was dreaming of fighting, I was dreaming of winning that fight, and lastly dreaming of defaming my competitor. The song is frantic and doesn’t have a tonal center. With its weaving guitar harmonies laid underneath countering vocal melodies, it sounds to me like that regretful fistfight that I was longing for.”
“Chainsaw” is a rousingly anthemic Dinosaur Jr./Siamese Dream-era Smashing Pumpkins-like ripper that sees Riley expressing the frustrations and pent-up annoyances with roommates and their quirks and foibles. “The song is written from my perspective about a time when I made an uncertain decision to move in with a partner and her friend and a slew of manic stories that ensued after the fact,” Bedridden’s Jack Riley explains “One of the stories was that of the roommates incessantly searching to buy a new lamp and how it bothered me. The video is me trying to break through that anger by destroying the lamps.”
Moths Strapped to Each Other’s Backs‘ latest single “Philadelphia, Get Me Through” may arguably be one of the album’s angriest and most forceful rippers. Featuring driving rhythms paired with Dinosaur Jr.-meets- The Colour and The Shape-era Foo Fighters-like riffage, big shout-along worthy hooks and choruses, “Philadelphia, Get Me Through” is a one-part tongue-in-cheek joke, one-part diss track informed by personal experience.
“This is the most charged song I wrote forMoths,” Bedridden’s Jack Riley says. “I was hyper-aware that I was losing it at the time. I was chasing a relationship that only made me feel belittled. Bedridden took a day trip out to Philly to play a show with Worlds Worst and I thought that having a good night away from Brooklyn would cure me. It didn’t. Soon after, I dug up this angular, repetitive riff in a 5/4 time signature and found the melody quickly. The song crescendos into damn near a metal track. Nick wrote an incredible drum part. I had the perfect groundwork for a diss track.”
California-born, London -based singer/songwriter and guitarist Jen Chochinov has been crafting catchy, propulsive rock in DIY circles since the 1990s as a solo artist and in a variety of bands. Solo and full adventures throughout her career have included […]
Since relocating to London back in 2013, she has continued playing shows throughout the UK and US both solo and with her full band. In 2018 and 2019, Chochinov was a touring member of Thurston Moore‘s Guitar Ensemble, playing shows throughout the UK and Europe alongside Nøght‘s and Thurston Moore Group’s James Sedwards, My Bloody Valentine‘s and Thurston Moore Group’s Deb Googe, Sonic Youth‘s Steve Shelley, Thurston Moore Group’s and The Oscillation‘s Jim Doulton and Wobbly‘s Jonathan Leideker.
Chochinov is also the frontperson of the British-based noise rock outfit Schande. The outfit, which also features Italian-born Gio Vilaraut (bass) and Canadian-born Ryan Grieve (drums) will be releasing their full-length debut Once Around through Thurston and Eva Moore’s Ecstatic Peace Library’s The Daydream Library Series on September 27, 2024.
Inspired by the works of Hannah Arendt and Adriana Cavarero, One Around thematically focuses on notions of personal existence and subjectively. As Chochinov puts it, the record consists of “contemplations on the teh ways in which we do and do not disclose ourselves to each other, our responsibilities towards ourselves and others, and the ways we do or do not acknowledge the experience ion others. Mirrored by the band’s creative process, which often sees Chochinov writing the lyrics to instrumentals formed out of jams and group revisions, the album aims to explore the ways in which the most personal journeys depend on others, something the collective of expats navigate daily as they establish and reinvent themselves in their adoptive home of the UK.
Once Around‘s latest single “Palimpsest,” is a breakneck, New Wave-like ripper anchored around Chochinov’s angular guitar jangle, Villaraut’s driving bass lines and Grive’s forceful timekeeping. Chochinov’s insouciant delivery ethereally floats over the chaotic fray, seemingly emphasizing the indifference that the narrator’s expressing throughout. Sonically, “Palimpsest” recalls 120 Minutes MTV-era alt-rock, complete with rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses.
“I can’t help but hear the Siouxsie influence every time we play the song. Plus, let’s be honest, ‘palimpsest’ is just a great word,” Chochinov says. “I used a tuning I learned from my friend Darren who I had a recording project with years ago, forgot about it, and then when I started playing around with a 12 string guitar Thurston lent me it all came flooding back, like ‘oh yeaaaaaah. I wonder how this guitar would sound in that tuning?’ As it turns out, ‘rad’ is the answer to that question — just really dynamic and expansive and effortlessly creates a prismatic life of its own. Lyrically, the song reflects on patterns of behaviors that leave room for improvement.”
The Smile’s sophomore album, the Sam Petts-DaviesWall of Eyes is slated for a January 26, 2024 through XL Recordings. The album, which was recorded in Oxford and legendary Abbey Road Studios features string arrangements from London Contemporary Orchestra.
Late last year, I wrote about Wall of Eyes‘ first single, album title track, “Wall of Eyes,” an eerily haunting and meditative song that sees the trio pair Yorke’s imitably yearning delivery with a glitchy arrangement featuring strummed guitar melody, glittering strings and gently padded drums. The song evokes — at least to me — a slow-burning sense of dread and unease.
Wall of Eyes‘ latest single “Friend Of A Friend” continues a remarkable run of broodingly cinematic and meditative material that sees the trio pairing twinkling keys, gently swinging jazz-inflected percussion, mournful saxophone from Robert Stillman and soaring strings with Yorke’s achingly yearning delivery. “Friend of a Friend” manages to be a subtle synthesis of Amnesiac-era Radiohead, 70s AM rock and art film scores.
Along with the new single, which was originally showcased during the band’s 2022-2023 tour, the bands announce new European headlining dates in June and August, in addition to their near sold-out run of shows in March. All tour dates, including the new ones are listed below. But tickets for June and August run go on sale Friday, January 12, 2024. Check out: https://www.thesmiletheband.com/live for details.
James Holden will open for The Smile at all of their headline shows this year.
The video for “Friend Of A Friend,” by motion picture director Paul Thomas Anderson, will be premiered alongside a surround sound album playback of Wall Of Eyes at a series of one-off events hosted at independent cinemas between January 18-25th.
The events, titled Wall Of Eyes, On Film will celebrate the new album and the band’s collaboration with Paul Thomas Anderson. It will take place at 12 cinemas from Sydney to Mexico City, and includes a New York City event at The Village East. The events comprise:
Wall Of Eyes album playback in its entirety, for the first and only time with surround sound and accompanying never-before-seen footage of the album’s recording sessions.
The world film premiere of Friend Of A Friend and a presentation of Wall Of Eyes, both directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and shot on 35mm film*
A programme looking back over Paul Thomas Anderson’s previous directorial collaborations with both Thom Yorke and Radiohead to include ANIMA (short film) and Radiohead’s Daydreaming (35mm), Present Tense & The Numbers.
Further information on these events and how to obtain tickets can be found here HERE.
Tickets will be on sale from 10am GMT on Thursday, January 11th.
Screening events:
Jan 18th – The Prince Charles Cinema, Leicester Square, London, UK*
Jan 18th – The Village East, Manhattan, New York, US*
Jan 19th – Brain Dead Studios, Los Angeles, US*
Jan 20th – SangSang Madang Cinema, Seoul, SK (x2 showings)
Jan 20th – Cinema Godard – Fondazione Prada, Milan, IT*
Jan 20th – Cine Tonalá, CDMX, MX
Jan 22nd – 190 Cinemas Premium Shinjuku, Tokyo, JP*
Jan 22nd – MK2 Quai de Loire, Paris, FR*
Jan 23rd – Golden Age Cinema, Sydney, AUS (x2 showings)
Jan 23rd – Eye Filmuseum, Amsterdam, NL*
Jan 23rd – Glasgow Film Theatre, Glasgow, UK*
Jan 25th – 190 Cinemas Premium Shinjuku, Tokyo, JP*
Jan 25th – Kino Intimes, Berlin, DE
*35mm presentations available in select participating cinemas
March 2024 UK and European Tour Dates
Wed 13th March: Copenhagen – K.B. Hallen Fri 15th March: Brussels – Forest National Sat 16th March: Amsterdam – AFAS Live Mon 18th March: Brighton – Brighton Centre Tue 19th March: Manchester – O2 Apollo Wed 20th March: Glasgow – SEC Armadillo Fri 22nd March: Birmingham – O2 Academy Sat 23rd March: London – Alexandra Palace
June and August 2024 European dates:
June 8th – Hamburg, Stadtpark Open Air, Germany
June 9th – Cologne Palladium, Germany
June 11th – Berlin, Verti Music Hall, Germany
June 12th – Prague, Forum Karlin, Czechia
June 14th – Belgrade, Hangar, Serbia
June 15th – Pula Arena, Pula, Croatia
June 17th – Bucharest, Arenele Romane, Romania
June 18th – Sofia, Arena Sofia, Bulgaria
June 23rd – Rome, Cavea Auditorium, Roma Summer Fest, Italy
August 13th – Sigulda Castle, Sigulda, Latvia
August 14th – Warsaw, Progresja, Summer Stage, Poland
Rising London-based outfit Island of Love — Karim Newble (guitar/vocals), Linus Munch (guitars/vocals) and Daniel Giraldo (bass) — can trace their origins to meeting through London’s hardcore punk scene, while playing in other hands, including Newbie’s Powerplant. They’ve all shared bills with bands like Chubby and the Gang and High Vis. And with their various previous projects, the London-based trio proudly adhered to a DIY ethos: they booked their own shows, printed their own merch, designed their own very distinct artwork, and self-released material recorded at Fuzzbrain, an East London studio dedicated to fostering the underground music community by making high-quality studio and rehearsal space accessible to artists under 25 years-old at all price points.
The trio released their debut collection of demos, 2020’s Promo Tape. By the time they had written and recorded last year’s Songs of Love EP, the London-based outfit had gotten much tighter. “Promo Tape was us trying to learn to write songs individually but Songs of Love was us trying to learn to write songs as a band,” Island of Love’s Karim Newbie says.
Back in September 2021, Island of Love were invited to perform at the opening of Third Man Records’ The Blue Basement. It’s a good thing that the band showed up to the gig at all, given that they didn’t even think the email invitation they received to play was real. The very real and definitely not spam offer led to their on-the-spot signing to the label, opening slots for Jack White — and their self-titled full-length debut.
Slated for a May 12, 2023 release, the London trio’s Ben Spence-produced, self-titled full-length debut reportedly sees the band crafting material that pinballs back and forth between tones and styles while rooted in crunchy guitars and the intrinsically melodic sensibility that brings Hüsker Dü and Dinosaur Jr. to mind while featuring the shared vocal and songwriting duties of Newbie and Munch. At the core of the material is a great deal of restraint and consideration, the sort that belies their relative youth as musicians — and as a band. While the material is loud and noisy, but it built around push-pull dynamics that results in moments of tenderness and quiet that then elevates the crunch and power of the rousingly anthemic, noisier parts. The album shows the balance of it being written in bedrooms but being honed in live shows,” says Munch. “It captures a contrast.”
Sonically and even thematically. the album explores duality, balance and contrast. Sure there’s crunchy power chords exploding out of the gate and into your eardrums one moment, but there’s also melodic, sugary pop hooks paired with introspective, considered songwriting. “This album exceeded our expectations,” says Newble. “I’m really proud of it.” What we’ve done on this album is much more of an accurate representation of us and where we’re at,” Island of Love’s Daniel Giraldo adds. “The EP sounds good but the difference on the album is huge.”
When the band set about making the album, they wanted to carry over as much of that DIY spirit as possible. They continued their relationship with Ben Spence and Fuzzbrain, who helped the band record their early demos. For the band, Spence, Fuzzbrain and the community both have fostered have proven invaluable to the band. “Growing up I couldn’t afford equipment,” Newble says. “But Fuzzbrain was this space where you could go to practice and use insane equipment. We never had to bring guitars, pedals or leads. You could just show up and plug in. We would have struggled to be a band without that place.” According to Giraldo , ““It’s very much [Spence’s] record as much as it is ours.”
The London trio recently shared the first taste of the album with the double A-side single “Grow”/”Blues 2000.” “Grow” is a 120 Minutes-era MTV-like bit of alt rock centered around crunchy power chords, thunderous drumming and the sort of enormous, melodic-driven hooks that immediately brings Dinosaur Jr. and others to mind. “Grow”is the first song the trio ever wrote together, and has been pulled and reimagined from their demo release, Promo Tape. “Blues 2000” continues the 90s alt rock vibes but is rooted in dueling guitar riffage and thunderous drumming.
Both songs are fan favorite staples of their live show and are always played back-to-back.
