‘After the Rain, Strange Seeds’, The Leaf Library’s fourth album, explores themes of memory and place through an abstract point of view – welcoming you to marvel at how strange and special the natural world can be. ‘Colour Chant’ starts the album in suitably atmospheric fashion, all tribal-tinged guitar and rhythmic vocals about scattering over…
American Football have previewed LP4 with the release of 8-minute epic ‘Bad Moons’. Originally written as two separate reacks, the first section is built around a sample of a gentle harp strum as Mike Kinsella ponders over past misdemeanours and the hurt they’ve caused: ‘Surprise, I’ve been so many boys in this trenchcoat. Ask my…
Bath’s dream poppers Night Swimming have shared ‘Poison Berry’ ahead of the release of new EP ‘Melting, Sometimes Bleeding’ via Venn Records on 22 May, 2026. Produced by Peter Miles (Orla Gartland, Nina Nesbitt) and mastered by Simon Scott of Slowdive, the sound is very much in the shoegaze scene, but with extra hypnotic, psych-tinged…
Nottingham trio Eyre Llew have shared new single ‘Miningsby’. A song about ‘staying, listening and offering warmth’ when someone you love is struggling, the poignant song was recorded on a baby grand piano the band no longer owns. It opens in sparse post-rock fashion, all bowed guitar, restrained drums and genteel piano before the falsetto…
The Lemon Twigs have shared ‘I Just Can’t Get Over Losing You’ ahead of the release of new album ‘Look for Your Mind!’ on 8 May via Captured Tracks. A break-up song hidden amongst the most joyous of pop melodies (with a Beatles-esque video to boot) there’s a fondness shining through as the band recall…
Manchester duo Succulents have shared their debut single ‘Underdog’, a song that Laurie Hulme says has ‘a darkly playful edge to the narrative, not unlike the gleeful antagonism found in The Twits, wrapped in warm, fuzzed-out indie-pop textures’. With The Pastels-meets-Cheap Trick power-pop hooks from its first melodic moment, Lauria and bandmate Lucy Ridges sing…
London-based feminist punk rockers YAKKIE have shared ‘Lean Out’ as a Pay What You Want track on Bandcamp, with all money raised being donated to striking teaching assistants at Richard Cobden school in North London. Confirming the track is a tribute to Dawn Foster and the global women’s strike, vocalist Janey Starling (also the founding…
Rosa Walton, one half of Let’s Eat Grandma, has shared ‘Sorry Anyway’ ahead of the release of debut solo album ‘Tell Me It’s a Dream’ on 5 June, 2026. Rosa says the song is ‘About doing your own thing, embracing who you are, and not caring about fitting into boxes, and also trying to inspire…
False Advertising have shared new single ‘Acid Rain’ ahead of the release of new album ‘The Sorry Window’ on 1 May, 2026. A song about ‘feeling attacked by your own insecurity and fighting back’, the music was inspired by a dream Jen Hingley had about watching Fall Out Boy live. There’s a grungey atmosphere running…
Beabadoobee has followed up her poignant cover of Elliott Smith’s ‘Say Yes’ for the Help (2) compilation with ‘All I Did Was Dream of You’, a chilled-out but no-less-emotional collaboration with The Marias. She sings ‘All I wanted was to see everything you see in me’ and follows this with all kinds of introspection and…
The Xcerts follow pulsating single ‘Do It to Myself’ with the tender and emotional ‘In Your Eyes’. A song Murray Macleod describes as ‘without question the most raw and personal song we’ve ever written’, it covers both the loss of bassist Jordan Smith’s mother to cancer and the breakdown of a ‘forever love’: ‘The closing…
Bristol trio Masca have shared ‘Love Letters’ ahead of the album of the same name, out on 3 April, 2026 via Cold Hard Bangers. Vocalist and guitarist Christina Maynard says the song is ‘a love letter – along with all the other songs we’ve ever written – to music. It also details our worries and…
2000trees Festival has announced its complete line-up for 2026, with Neck Deep joining Funeral for a Friend and Alkaline Trio as main stage headliners. The festival – always one of the highlights of the summer – has also announced emo legends Sunny Day Real Estate, hotly tipped Bleech 9:3 and trees favourites The Xcerts will…
Following an extensive touring schedule to promote their incredible 2022 debut ‘Where the Heart Is’, Zayna Youssef of Sweet Pill hit a wall when it came to writing the follow-up. After realising it was 50/50 blockage and being hard on herself, she started writing collaboratively with fellow band members guitarists Jayce Williams and Sean McCall,…
‘Three Halves’ opens the record in shoegazey fashion, although there’s a touch of C86 jangliness running through. Think of the meeting point between Arab Strap and Heavenly and you’re halfway there. It then picks up the pace towards the end, while ‘Shadow of You Appears’ is more restrained with its tribal Radiohead-esque guitars, fractured strings…
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