Having started as a solo project of Oslo-via-Malmo based artist Johan Hansson Liljeberg, Smiling is now a full band completed by Johan Arvid Ingvarsson (Mary Anne’s Polar Rig, New Banke), Julia Wiklund (New Banke), and August Glännestrand (LAV SOL, Liv Andrea Hauge Trio). They’re now set to release their third album ‘Why Are You’, a…
With an original mission statement of ‘If you’ve got too many chords in it, you’re wrong’, much-hyped Manchester-based four piece Westside Cowboy release their debut album ‘It Goes On’. Focusing on the joy that can be found in each other’s company and the organic chemistry that resonates with this, it’s a record the band want…
Australian indie-rockers Sesame Girl have released ‘Butterfly Wing in a Silver Locket’, an EP filled with six songs that are a delicate and sublime as the title would suggest. Throughout the EP, Heather Duncan ruminates on people, possessions, moments and memories. ‘Wings of a Butterfly’ opens the EP in genteel fashion as Heather sings about…
The Anchoress has shared ‘Damsels’, the second single to be taken from forthcoming album ‘As We Once Were’ (out on 7 August, 2026). Regarding the themes of the track, Catherine Anne Davies said she looked to her regular touring partners, Manic Street Preachers: ‘It takes inspiration from the history lessons I got as a teenager…
New York City duo Widowspeak have shared ‘Soft Cover’, the third single to be taken from new album ‘Roses’ (out on 5 June via Captured Records. A song about infatuation, wanting and daydreaming, there’s a touch of Jesca Hoop in the charming alt-country sound and the driving rhythm section as Molly Hamilton begs to be…
Bodega have returned with new single ‘Pick Up the Check’, a song that guitarist/vocalist (and director of this song’s video) Ben Hozie says is ‘set at an imagined date at a faux fancy restaurant w/ art deco wallpaper and fish-tank ambience. I know too many friends who tolerate unfulfilling relationships (either romantic, platonic, artistic, or…
a forest – a creative collective formed around solo artist and songwriter Matt Hughes, but with plenty of guidance and support from Arcane Roots’ Andrew Groves – have shared debut single ‘Something I Need’ following its debut play by Daniel P Carter on the BBC Radio 1 Rock Show. Taking influence from Mark Lanegan, The…
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…
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…
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