Tag: indie rock

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: London’s Oliver Beardmore Teams Up with Brooklyn’s Punchlove on a Yearning “120 Minutes”-era MTV-like Single

Rising London-based singer/songwriter Oliver Beardmore has built up a reputation as a highly sought-after opener, playing alongside Gia Ford, Junodream, Late Night Drive Home and Steven Mason. The London-based artist has also played a number of sold-out headlining sets across the UK. And adding to a growing profile, Beardmore has received airplay from BBC Radio 1 and BBC Introducing.

The rising British artist’s latest single, the Beardmore and Xav Sinden co-produced “Ammonite” is a 120 Minutes-era MTV-like, wistful slow-burn, anchored around Beardmore’s yearning falsetto that slowly builds up into a stormy and textured climax played by Brooklyn-based shoegazers Punchlove. Sonically channeling The Bends-era Radiohead, “Ammonite,” manages to convey an uneasy push and pull of self-flagellation and blame in a dysfunctional relationship between two equally dysfunctional, hurt people.

“The song is about being drawn to people who share the same insecurities or flaws. We project our issues onto each other, but that weight often causes hurt that no one else is really to blame for,” Beardmore says. “There’s freedom in no longer searching for your flaws in someone else, and relief in calling off that search. In the end, you can hurt yourself more than anyone else ever could – but there’s something almost hedonistic in giving yourself away to someone who’ll let you.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Fuzz Lightyear Shares Expansive and Bruising “Aberfan”

Rising Leeds-based indie outfit Fuzz Lightyear — Ben Parry (vocals, guitar), Josh Taylor (drums), Varun Govil (bass) and Alex Calder (synth, guitar) — have built up a staunch and rabid following across the UK through tours opening for acts like English Teacher, Adult DVD, Lambrini Girls, and Jasmine.4.T.

Building upon a rapidly growing profile across the UK, their two previously released singles “Sit Awake,” and “Berlin 1885” have received praise from NME, DIY Magazine, Clash Magazine, So Young, The Line Of Best Fit, Rough Trade and Under The Radar, as well as airplay on BBC 6 Music‘s Steve Lamacq, Huw Stephens and Emily Pilbeam, and Radio X’s John Kennedy.

The British quartet’s highly-anticipated Alex Greaves-produced debut EP Zero Guilt is slated for a November 21, 2025 release through Nice Swan Records. The EP reportedly sees the band quickly establishing a chaotic and forceful blend of shoegaze, industrial noise rock and punk that some have said lands between Sonic Youth and Show Me The Body. The EP will feature their previously released singles “Sit Awake” and “Berlin 1885,” and their latest single “Aberfan.”

Arriving ahead of their set at this year’s Left Of The Dial Festival and a headlining UK tour in December, “Aberfan” is an expansive song that begins with a lengthy and broodingly atmospheric, introduction featuring shimmering and reverb-soaked guitar textures with Pary’s impassioned vocals before turning into a bruising and fiery 90s grunge-like rocker for the song’s second half.

“Coming from the South Wales valleys I have always held the story of Aberfan close to my heart. It was the Grenfell of its time, a direct example of working class neglect,” Fuzz Lightyear’s Ben Parry says. “Growing up nearby it always served as a reminder to be wary of the corporate and political class. Maturing into adolescence my friends and I would always remind ourselves of Grenfell, of Tryweryn and Mynydd Epnyt to remain skeptical of the British – we are Welsh, not British.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Weird Nightmare Shares Defiantly Upbeat Anthem “Forever Elsewhere”

Known for his decade-plus stint as frontman of Toronto-based JOVM mainstays METZ, singer/songwriter and guitarist Alex Edkins developed and honed a reputation for being a master craftsman of eardrum splitting, hooky rippers.

Edkins’ recording project Weird Nightmare saw the longtime METZ frontman showcasing a sugary and distorted pop sensibility to his long-established reputation for enormous power chord riffs and rousingly anthemic hooks with the project’s 2022 self-titled, full-length debut and a handful of one-off singles.

His latest single, the Jim Eno co-produced “Forever Elsewhere” is a rollicking and defiantly upbeat, hook-driven anthem that sounds to me a bit like a synthesis of Edkins’ work with METZ and The Replacements. While retaining the anthemic hooks of his Weird Nightmare debut album, “Forever Elsewhere” is a decided departure from the lo-fi bedroom approach, and step forward into the high-fiddly, shout-along with your friends anthems. And lord knows, we need a few more of those right now.

“‘Forever Elsewhere’ is the most optimistic song I’ve written to date. I wanted to send an unequivocal positive message into the world,” Edkins explains. “The line ‘Love, it will come,’ summarizes the overall theme: if things feel hopeless and the world is bleak, don’t give up, keep pushing. I like to think of it as a pep talk wrapped in fuzzy guitars. 
 
“I recorded with Seth Manchester (he engineered the last two METZ records) and Jim Eno (Spoon), and we tracked this one really quickly. Drummer Loel Campbell (Wintersleep) and Roddy Kuester (Julianna Riolino/Sadies) nailed it in 2 takes, and you can really hear the ramshackle energy in the song where the wheels almost fall off a couple of times. We tried to keep it loose.”

Directed by Colin Medley, the accompanying video for “Forever Elsewhere,” is an adorable and fairly accurate portrayal of adolescence turning into young adulthood, with the bitter recognition that occasionally adulthood is some asshole trying to take advantage of you. And yet, love and kindness somehow sets things straight.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: dune reaper Shares Bruising Ripper “forever asleep”

Burlington, ON-based duo dune reaper — Hunter Murray (drums, vocals) and Nathanael Smith (guitar) — can trace their origins to when its members first met while working at a construction site. The duo bonded over a shared passion for music and they spent countless hours crafting a sound that meshes elements of stoner rock, punk rock, alternative metal and alternative rock, rooted in their motto to “make music loud again.”

Released earlier this year, the duo’s debut single “forever asleep” is a bruising and forceful ripper, featuring Murray’s thunderous drumming and impassioned delivery and Smith’s muscular riffage paired with rousingly anthemic, mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses. Sonically channeling 90s alt rock — think Nirvana‘s “Dive,” Melvins and the like — the Canadian duo’s debut single is informed and inspired by their own lives, in which they struggle with juggling physically demanding blue-collar jobs while chasing their musical dreams in their free time. And as a result, the song captures and expresses frustration, exhaustion, and the desperate desire to make it at all costs in a way that should feel familiar to anyone, who’s working for a living and hustling big dreams on the side.

“Balancing 60-hour workweeks in the construction industry while trying to bring this song to life was an intense challenge. Every verse, every line of the lyrics was forged in the pressure and exhaustion of that grind,” the Canadian duo explain. “That struggle is what shaped the song’s raw, aggressive energy — it’s the sound of frustration turned into fire. At its core, the track captures the voices of two kids who are tired of only being able to chase their passion in the slivers of time left over from their day jobs. It’s a rebellion against limitation, a release of pent-up creativity that had to wait until the weekend to breathe.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: King Black Acid and Birdie Swann Sisters Team Up on Darkly Seductive “Rats In The City”

Daniel Riddle is Portland, OR-based is a singer/songwriter and musician, who has written and recorded music under the moniker King Black Acid since the late 1980s, while spending time as a member of industrial outfit Hitting Birth. Since the early 90s, Riddle has led a number of different collectives and projects that have toured and shared stages with Elliott Smith, Nirvana, Low, Moby, Sonic Youth, The Dandy Warhols, Faith No More, Dead Moon, Menomena, The Fugees, Arctic Monkeys, Spacemen 3, Danzig, Nine Inch Nails and more.

Throughout his career, Riddle’s music has been featured on CSI: Miami, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, The Mothman Prophecies, Witchblade, Dream With Fishes, Do Me a Favor and CNN Sports, as well as ad campaigns for Nike, Reebok, Tiger Woods Golf, CNN, Coca-Cola, Abercrombie and Fitch, Gap and The Olympics.

Birdie Swann Sisters is a collaborative project featuring:

  • Birdie Moon, a French producer, engineer and musician, who has played with M83, AIR, Beck, The Knife and a lengthy list of others.

  • Daisy Rae Swann, an Icelandic producer and singer/songwriter, who has written and recorded material with acts like Coldplay, Florence and the Machine, Gorillaz and countless others.

The Birdie Swann Sisters met King Black Acid’s Daniel Riddle while working on film soundtracks for television/streaming services. Working remotely and trading sound files, the trio bonded over their mutual love of vintage analog instruments, lo-fi guitars and an emphasis on rare synthesizers and drum machines.

Their initial film and TV score collaborations lead to Dream School Dropout, the trio’s 10-song collaborative album. Sonically, the album sees the trio mixing elements of cinematic 80s dream pop, 70s soul and R&B, yacht rock and psych rock into a lush, dreamy tapestry.

Dream School Dropout‘s latest single “Rats In The City” is a slickly produced, hook-driven, club friendly bop featuring glistening and oscillating synths and skittering boom bap that brings Evil Heat-era Primal Scream, Tame Impala, POND and even Midnight Juggernauts to mind paired with darkly seductive, somewhat menacing lyrics.

The accompanying video is a slickly edited mashup of B movie footage, stock footage and psychedelic imagery pulsing and undulating to the song’s propulsive beat.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Taleen Kali Shares Bruising “Crossed”

JOVM mainstay Taleen Kali (she/they) is a Los Angeles-born and-based singer/songwriter, guitarist, poet, essayist, visual artist, Dum Dum Records founder and head and Dum Dum Fest founder. As a singer/songwriter and musician, Kali has made a career out of crafting Romantic punk songs that are routinely dreamy and defiant while featuring elements of shoegaze, psych rock and grunge.

The Los Angeles-based artist also has been influenced by melodies and imagery from her Armenian heritage and her parents’ birthplaces of Lebanon and Ethiopia, fusing her cultural heritage and identity with the sounds of the modern countercultures that Kali grew up embracing and eventually exploring as musician.

Kali’s career started in earnest with a stint in Los Angeles-based outfit TÜLIPS. After TÜLIPS split up, the Los Angeles-based JOVM mainstay stepped out into the spotlight as a solo artist, eventually touring across the US with Ex Hex, Alice Bag and Seth Bogart. 

The JOVM mainstay’s 2018  Kristin Kontrol-produced Soul Songs EP was recorded at Hollywood-based Sunset Sound Studios and found Kali’s long-held riot grrl ethos maturing into a polished, multifaceted punk-leaning sound with elements of noise pop and New Wave. The EP received praise from BUST Magazine and Stereogum, who likened her sound to a contemporary Blondie. Soul Songs was also included in Pitchfork‘s Guide to Summer Albums and LA Weekly‘s Best Indie Punk Albums. 

Their 2023 Jeff Schroeder and Josiah Mazzaschi-co-produced full-length debut Flower of Life saw the JOVM mainstay firmly cementing a fuzzy and noisy take on psych punk paired with vocals that ran the range of femme punk and shoegaze siren. The album’s first two singles “Flower of Life” and “Crusher” received airplay from KEXP and KCRW respectively. KCRW’s Henry Rollins — yes, that Henry Rollins — played the album on the station literally weekly after the album’s release. And the album’s material received heavy rotation over at KEXP.

Adding to a growing national profile, Kali was interviewed by Spin. Flowers of Life was named a Bandcamp Album of the Day. Kali also supported the album with two US tours that included sets at Freakout Fest, Psyched Fest, Treefort, SXSW and their own Dum Dum Fest.

Hot on the heels of their recent appearance at this year’s Purple City Fest in Edmonton, Kali and their backing band have just embarked on a North American tour. The tour includes an October 8, 2025 stop at Purgatory. And as always, the remaining tour dates are below.

But in the meantime, the JOVM mainstay shares their latest single “Crossed,” a bruising song anchored around thunderously propulsive drumming, swirling, shoegaze-meets-garage punk fuzz and enormous, rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses paired with Kali’s seductive, commanding delivery. The song may arguably be among the hardest and grittiest songs that the JOVM mainstay has released to date, showcasing a darker sonic direction drawing from the likes of The Horrors, Ringo Deathstarr, Sextile, L.A. Witch, Tamaryn, Curve, Chapterhouse and others.

“The opening lines of the song are ‘Rose is a rose’ which is from my favorite Gertrude Stein poem ‘Sacred Emily.’ It’s meant to convey ‘it is what it is,’ or ‘things are what they are.’ I wanted to write about how matter of fact things are in life when the only choice you have is to ride the waves of grief,” the JOVM mainstay explains. “I lost my grandmother in 2023, the year we released our debut album, and the song ‘Crossed’ is a personal exploration where I’m just trying to make sense of the loss. Missing my favorite person on earth and wishing I could find a way to commune with the dead. The artwork features an Ethiopian cross that my grandmother always used to wear from her hometown of Addis Ababa, which she passed onto me.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Martina and the Moons Return with Hook Driven and Anthemic “Laundry Mat”

Led by Spanish-Scottish frontperson Martina Moon, Dublin-based indie outfit Martina and the Moons can trace their origins back to when Moon relocated to Dublin to study at BIMM University, where she met and quickly connect with her then-future bandmates Ruby Levins (bass), Zahira Ellis (drums) and Sarah Morgan (guitar).

The Dublin-based quartet quickly established a sound that blended elements of post-punk, indie rock, 90s Brit Pop and the 60s and 70s Laurel Canyon sound while featuring gorgeous melodies and a youthful aggression and angst. In fact, Moon, who cites Paul Simon, Lady Gaga, Catatonia, Radiohead, Bruno Mars and a list of others, writes lyrics that frequently touch on themes of alienation, being misunderstood, being an outsider, and yearning with a deeply lived-in sensibility and earnestness.

In a short period of time, the band has played opening slots for Porridge Radio and Thumper. They’ve played Whelan’s Main Stage at Ones to Watch. And adding to a growing regional profile, they played this past year’s The Great Escape Festival, receiving mentions from BBC Introducing and praise from Golden Plec and from Hotpress, who named them one of their Hot for ’25 acts. 

Earlier this year, the band signed to Dublin-based artist developmental label, Rubarb Music, who their Ruadhrí Cushnan-produced “Baby Turtle.” “Laundry Mat,” the follow up to “Baby Turtle” is a hook-driven anthem and arguably, the Dublin-based act’s hardest rocking tune to date. And while showcasing the more Brit pop-leaning elements of their sound, “Laundry Mat,” seemingly channels more contemporary fare, like Aussie JOVM mainstays RVG and others.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Charlatans UK Share Groovy “Deeper and Deeper”

The Charlatans UK — Tim Burgess (vocals), Martin Blunt (bass), Mark Collins (guitar), Tony Rogers (keys) and The Verve co-founder Pete Salisbury (drums) — are arguably one of the best-loved and commercially successful British bands of the past 40 years or so. Over the course of their nearly 40 run, the band has released 13 albums, 3 of which landed at #1 on the UK Albums Chart. They also have amassed 22 Top 40 UK singles, including beloved songs “The Only One I Know,” “North Country Boy” and “One to Another.” 

Their long awaited and highly anticipated 14th album, the Dev Hynes, Fred Macpherson and Stephen Street co-produced We Are Love is slated for an October 31, 2025 release through BMG. The first album from the acclaimed outfit in eight years, the longest gap in their history, was a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the individual members’ solo projects and side projects, life’s twists, turns and complexities and the fact that each of the band’s individual members live scattered across Europe. With all of that going on, it took longer than usual to figure out schedules; for the stars to align; and for the right vibe and right time. 

Recoded at two places that are almost apocryphal in the band’s history — Wales-based Rockfield Studios and the band’s Middlewich, Chesire-based Big Mushroom, We Are Love reportedly sees the band launching into a bold new era, one that finds them at peace with their past while looking forward to the future. The band’s Tim Burgess cites hauntology and psychogeography as two major concepts that swirled in his head as the band worked on the album. 

The band returned to Rockfield Studios for the first time since the recording sessions for the fifth album, 1997’s Tellin’ Stories. As a band, they hadn’t been there since keyboardist Rob Collins’ death, in the middle of that album’s sessions, in a car accident at the bottom of the track leading to the farm surrounding the studio.

Throughout the album, you can hear the band’s awareness of the things that made them — the highs and lows the desire to honor their own legacy, while not being deeply defined by it; and a career-long drive to be innovative and progressive. “The whole idea of hauntology and psychogeography is represented by us going back to Rockfield, where so much history has happened for The Charlatans,” the band’s Tim Burgess says. “That was important as a way of honoring every member who’s played in the band. So we’re honouring ourselves, our past, feeling that energy and reincarnating it, doing something fresh, brand new.” 

The album’s introspective creative process, brought home the fact that love has been the glue that has held the band together for so long, and ultimately that’s reflected on the album’s 11, forward-thinking, future-facing songs. 

We Are Love will feature the previously released, album title track “We Are Love,” a defiantly upbeat, road trip-meets-big venue/festival anthem, and the album’s second and latest single “Deeper and Deeper.” Anchored around a psych rock-inspired, Hammond organ and fuzzy guitar-driven groove paired with a supple yet propulsive bass line, “Deeper and Deeper” simultaneously channels the band’s classic, beloved sound while pushing it to a sleek, gleaming and contemporary direction.

“It kicks in with a sense of immediacy. It’s Altered States meets Pincher Martin,” the band’s Tim Burgess says. “The Hammond organ leads the way and hands you over to the irresistible and relentless bassline – a sense of giving in to what surrounds you. Sometimes it’s where you should be going. But you only get the answer once you can’t turn back.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Florida’s Jbryan Shares Meditative “Roads Not Taken”

Jbryan is a Midwest-born, Florida-based self-taught singer/songwriter and musician, whose creative career started fairly humbly: He picked up the drums and guitar and started writing songs during the COVID-19 pandemic. He then started producing songs — mainly because he really enjoyed it.

Now, pursuing music as a career, the Florida-based singer/songwriter and musician describes his work as mixing creative yet relatable lyrics with fun, laid-back melodies meant to connect with a wide range of listeners.

Released earlier this year, “Roads Not Taken,” is a mid-tempo, reflective song that showcases a songwriter, who can pair earnest, lived-in lyricism with a remarkable ability to craft a catchy hook. While seemingly channeling SANDS‘ “When It Stars to Rain” and JOVM mainstays Ten Fé, “Roads Not Taken,” as the Florida-based artist explains is about the paths in life we didn’t take and the memories that stay with us. And as a result, the song is rooted in mix of regret, wonder and acceptance of where you are right now — and how those experiences shape you.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Dear Boy Shares Madchester-like “The Address”

Los Angeles-based indie outfit Dear Boy — founding members Ben Grey (vocals, guitar) and Keith Cooper (drums) alongside Austin Hayman (lead guitar) and Lucy Lawrence (bass, vocals) — can trace their origins back to when its founding members Grey and Cooper were living in London during their mid-twenties. Hayman and Lawrence joined the band once its founding duo returned to the States.

Interestingly, despite their Stateside roots, the Los Angeles-based quartet’s work has drawn from ’80s and ’90s Brit pop and shoegaze — with the band citing Pulp, Oasis, Slowdive and The Jesus and Mary Chain as major influences, while also embracing the likes of Pixies and R.E.M. 

The band’s sophomore album sophomore album, the Aron Kobayashi Ritch-produced Celebrator is slated for an October 17, 2025 release through Last Gang Records. Following the success of their full-length debut, 2022’s Forever Sometimes, the band took a step back from perfectionist production practices and leaned into spontaneity. Written in 12 sessions and recorded live in under two weeks, the album’s material reportedly bristles with a palpable energy while showcasing the band’s musical and creative chemistry. “We made this album to remember why we do this in the first place,” the band says. “Because we love it. We adore each other. Joy. Connection. Heartbreak. Celebration. We’re not interested in anything other than that.”

Celebration will feature the previously released “After All,” feat. Rocket’s Alithea Tuttle, a bombastic anthem that brings 120 Minutes-era MTV and 90s Brit Pop to mind. The album’s latest single “The Address” continues the band’s Brit Pop-meets-shoegaze while featuring a Happy Mondays/Madchester-style breakbeat-driven drum groove and shoegazer textured guitar chug serving as a lush yet subtly dance floor friendly bed for Ben Grey’s plaintive and yearning delivery.

Much like its immediate predecessor, “The Address” showcases the band’s uncanny knack for paring catchy hooks and swaggering bombast with earnest, lived-in lyricism.

Fittingly, the video made by the band’s Ben Gray and Ryan Saunders, the accompanying video draws heavily from old school MTV visuals.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Glimmer Returns with Bruising Yet Anthemic “Been Down”

Over the past couple of years New York-based grungegaze outfit and JOVM mainstays Glimmer — Jeff Moore (vocals, guitar), Jaye Moore (drums), Johnny Nicholls (guitar) and Kevin Dobbins (bass) — have released a handful of well-received singles have seen the quartet firmly establishing a sound that mixes elements of shoegaze, grunge and dream pop in a way that’s both nostalgia inducing and yet contemporary.

Building upon a growing profile, the band’s highly-anticipated full-length debut, Get Weak is slated for an October 3, 2025 vinyl release through Philadelphia-based label, Abandon Everything. Recorded with Jeff Berner at Brooklyn-based Studio G and mastered by Will Yip, Get Weak reportedly sees the band pairing their more pop-leaning singles with heavy-hitting alt-rock anthems and softer, more ethereal material

The album’s latest and last pre-release single “Been Down” features big, crunchy, Dinosaur Jr.-like riffs with even bigger, remarkably catchy The Colour and The Shape-era Foo Fighters-like hooks and forcefully propulsive drumming serving as a lush yet remarkably catchy bed for Jeff Moore’s dreamily plaintive delivery. “Been Down” showcases the band’s unerring knack for pairing big hooks and arena rock-like bombast with earnest, nostalgia-including lyricism. And while clearly drawing from 120 Minutes-era MTV alt rock, the new single continues a run of material that manages to sound incredibly contemporary.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Copenhagen’s Young Couple Shares Brooding “As the Leaves Unfold”

Copenhagen-based art rock/experimental art rock outfit Young Couple — Jonas Tøibner (vocals, guitar), Mikkel Kruse (bass), Eigil Fauerskov (guitar), Jens Brøndum (saxophone), and Christian Hafdrup (drums) — have crafted a intimate and unpredictable sound that sits within the intersection of post-rock, dream pop and neo-psychedelia featuring complex rhythmic structures, glitchy electronics, shoegazer like guitar textures and brooding sax lines paired with yearning vocals singing abstract lyrics full of fleeting, evasive images, describing an emotional landscape where love, dreams and friendships often intertwine.

The quintet have made a name for themselves in the Danish underground scene, playing shows with Jenny, Himmelrum and Bishbusch while members of the band have also played with Martha Elisabeth, Niko Corlin and Vakt. Building upon a growing profile in the Danish scene, Young Couple’s highly-anticipated full-length debut, yc is slated for a November 7, 2025 release through Pink Cotton Candy Records.

yc is the culmination of years of close friendship, extermination and musical exploration that reportedly sees the band pairing warm, organic instrumentation with layers of processing and effects. While drawing from shoegaze, post-rock and experimental pop, yc‘s material pushes the boundaries of those genres into something simultaneously familiar yet new. Thriving on contrast, texture and space, the Danish outfit’s full-length debut evokes a nocturnal, urban atmosphere perfect for listening on headphones late night.

yc’s first single “As the Leaves Unfold,” is a slow-burning and brooding tune that draws from and meshes elements of post rock, art rock, post punk, indie rock and shoegaze that captures an uneasy tension between the inner and outer worlds of its narrator with a precise attention to psychological realism. According to the band, “As the Leaves Unfold” is an exploration of “the small mysteries of everyday life,” and an optimism rooted in the belief that the most profound discovers of our lives can hide under the smallest of stones.

Adhering to long-held DIY ethos, the band accompany the new single with a completely self-made video, that features snippets of every day life full of symbolism — sunset at the beach, a major bicycle race, a boat ride in Arctic-like waters and more.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Charlatans UK Share Euphoric Visual for Anthemic “We Are Love”

The Charlatans UK — Tim Burgess (vocals), Martin Blunt (bass), Mark Collins (guitar), Tony Rogers (keys) and The Verve co-founder Pete Salisbury (drums) — are arguably one of the best-loved and commercially British bands of the past 40 years or so. Over the course of their lengthy run, the band has released 13 albums, 3 of which earned #1 on the UK Albums Charts with 22 Top 40 UK singles, including “The Only One I Know,” “North Country Boy” and “One to Another.” 

The acclaimed British outfit’s long awaited, highly anticipated 14th album, the Dev Hynes, Fred Macpherson and Stephen Street co-produced We Are Love is slated for an October 31, 2025 release through BMG. The first album from the acclaimed outfit in eight years, the longest gap in their history, was a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the individual members’ solo projects and side projects, life’s twists, turns and complexities and the fact that each of the band’s individual members live scattered across Europe. With all of that going on, it took longer than usual to figure out schedules; for the stars to align; and for the right vibe and right time. 

Recoded at two places that are almost apocryphal in the band’s history — Wales-based Rockfield Studios and the band’s Middlewich, Chesire-based Big Mushroom, We Are Love reportedly sees the band launching into a bold new era, one that finds them at peace with their past while looking forward to the future. The band’s Tim Burgess cites hauntology and psychogeography as two major concepts that swirled in his head as the band worked on the album. 

The band returned to Rockfield Studs for the first time since the recording sessions for the fifth album, 1997’s Tellin’ Stories. As a band, they hadn’t been there since keyboardist Rob Collins’ death, in the middle of that album’s sessions, in a car accident at the bottom of the track leading to the farm surrounding the studio. Reportedly throughout the album, you can hear the band’s awareness of the things that made them — the highs and lows the desire to honor their own legacy, while not being deeply defined by it; and a career-long drive to be innovative and progressive. “The whole idea of hauntology and psychogeography is represented by us going back to Rockfield, where so much history has happened for The Charlatans,” the band’s Tim Burgess says. “That was important as a way of honoring every member who’s played in the band. So we’re honouring ourselves, our past, feeling that energy and reincarnating it, doing something fresh, brand new.” 

The album’s introspective creative process, brought home the fact that love has been the glue that has held the band together for so long, and ultimately that’s reflected on the album’s 11, forward-thinking, future-facing songs. 

We Are Love‘s first single, album title track “We Are Love” is a defiantly upbeat, road trip-meets-big venue/festival anthem, anchored by a propulsive, motorik groove and rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses. Tim Burgess describes it as “like an open-top car ride in the credits of your favorite movie, driving along the coast to somewhere amazing.”

One of the first tracks to emerge as they were writing material, “We Are Love” became a pathfinder for the record as the band’s Mark Collins explains: “Early on, we thought it felt right. And it turned out that way: first single, title track, second song on the album. And things started forming around ‘We Are Love.’ There was a certain energy to it that drove us forward.”

The stylishly shot accompanying video for “We Are Love” features a collection of young people at a show, free and completely uninhibited. “To feel love you have to let your inhibitions go. That’s what’s happening here – at first the kids represent what keeps us tethered and then move towards euphoria which is what life is all about,” the band’s Tim Burgess explains. “The moment we let love in and accept ourselves is when we can stand alone and become love It’s also people on a dancefloor having a brilliant time which is never a bad thing.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Swimming Pool Shares Hazy “Wednesday Kinda Weekend”

Split between The Hague and Zürich, Swimming Pool — Klyl Shifroni and Seraina Fässler — can trace their origins back to when the duo met while studying at the Institute of Sonology, where they bonded over a shared passion for songwriting, digital synthesis and code-based composition. The project’s name is derived from a photography series featuring hurricane-damaged backyard pools, which they saw a s a metaphor for the overlooked, the fractured, and the quiet beauty of ruin.

Their collaboration was born from late-night DJ sets in abandoned garages. Those sets saw their sound expanding from instinctive improvisation intoned a layered process sharped by bowed bass textures, processed vocals and subtle sampling techniques. Through a bend of ambient minimalism, lo-fi and punk, the pair blend experimental electronics and emotionally direct songwriting to not only evoke a world that is both carefully constructed and deeply vulnerable, but also allows them to balance intimacy with abstraction and warmth with fracture.

The duo’s recently released EP Line Cuts is a slow-burning exploration of the tension between clarity and distortion, closeness and distance. Rather than delivering catharsis, the EP’s material lingers in the uneasy spaces between feelings. focusing on longing, memory, repetition and collapse.

Line Cuts EP‘s latest single “Wednesday Kinda Weekend” is a slow-burning and hazy track that features glistening, reverb-soaked shoegazer-like textures, thumping beats, a supple bass line, thunderous drum cracks serving as a lush and vibey bed for reverb and distortion-drenched vocals. While seemingly channeling Beach House, the song evokes disorientation — a sense of ethereally floating without recognition or acknowledgement of space or time.