The Underground Stage
Yeah, I know – everyone’s writing a COVID number, right? This one stands out though – while it’s another absolute head-thumper and full to the brim of DFT’s signature massive song, every single ingredient here is of a band just screaming out for help. Taken from their ‘Whatever Happens’ EP the opening lyric is smart […]
For fans of mid 00s Scottish indie rock, HighSchool’s references to We Were Promised Jetpacks will bring back happy memories here, especially of the “I’m young again” lyrical refrain of ‘Quiet Little Voices’. This is no throwback though, there is a thoroughly modern sheen that glistens across the surface here just as Smiths-y guitars, Strokes-y […]
Elizabeth Fader’s appeal has always lain in her ability to make frosty cool songs bubble with warmth, and ‘Lost In The Middle’ is no expection. While her latest tumbles along like ice cubes on glass, underneath it’s once again powered by a thermal wellspring of intensity and strength. The fact it sounds like an unheard Fleetwood […]
Bucolic and warmly-lit, Gimmy Flowens debut floats in like dust on a ray of sunlight. Delicate and airy, the vocal trembles with as much twang as the guitars, and while the song is so laid back it barely has a tempo, it’s enough to settle the heartrate and calm the breath in your body. A […]
Longtime favourites round here, Shaky Handz are the lo-fi racket to properly soundtrack a world in chaos. Taken from their latest tape (split with Bozos), this – like most of their tracks, it’s less than two minutes long – shows up, explodes in a shower of fuzz and lightly-rehearsed arty fun, and promptly leaves before […]
Two Last Names are three songs deep into their recorded material, and so far haven’t put a damn foot wrong. They may be a band born into the pandemic – all we have to go on are these recordings – but there are few bands, pandemic or no, that I’ve been so desperate to see […]
The immaculately-named Good Pash have been a longtime favourite around these parts, and ‘Delete Me’ simply affirms all the reasons why. I could spend all day talking about their talent for balancing light and shade in their songwriting, about how this track carries you on a tide that veers between turbulent mayhem and sparkling serenity, […]
I’m absolutely not going to be the one to pronounce something so old-fashioned as a ‘scene’, but it is worth noting that in the last month we’ve had Brendan Maclean’s ‘Gemini’, we’ve had Sarah Cherlin’s ‘Small Machines‘, and now we’ve got Toogla’s ‘Bubblegum’. All three are stage-quality musical numbers masquerading as instant pop classics, and […]
This crackly little wonder comes towards the end of Jack R Reilly’s first full-length album release, ‘Middle Everything, and like much of the LP, it comes off both haunting and comforting at the same time. It’s like that nursery rhyme you remembered years later – you might have been fondly reminded of childhood but there’s […]