Acclaimed singer, songwriter and performer Kathleen Edwards returns with her highly anticipated new album, “Billionaire”, on Dualtone Records. Evoking her debut, “Failer”, the new 10-song album is full of Edwards’ trademark lyrical sharpness and unflinching observations and was produced by Jason Isbell and Gena Johnson.
Celebrated as one of the forebears of modern alt- country and Americana music, Edwards is beloved by fans and fellow musicians, and praised by The New York Times for her, “droll, observant and unsparing tone that is all her own. In her best lines, Edwards has the conversational vernacular and emotional eloquence of a great short- story writer.”
Since debuting in 2003, Edwards has released five albums, including 2020’s “Total Freedom” — her frst after stepping away from music for almost a decade.
Released to overwhelming acclaim with pieces at The New Yorker, The New York Times , Rolling Stone and more, Pitchfork called it, “a creative breakthrough, written solely for the thrill of discovery,” while Rolling Stone declared it as, “devastatingly great.” Most recently, Edwards released a covers EP featuring special guests Isbell, Bahamas and Daniel Tashian and including renditions of Isbell’s “Traveling Alone,” BruceSpringsteen’s “Human Touch,” The Flaming Lips’ “Feeling Yourself Disintegrate,” Tom Petty’s “Crawling Back To You” and more. She has been nominated for multiple JUNO and Americana Awards and, in 2012, was awarded the SOCAN Songwriting Prize.
Italian doom metal alchemists MESSA released their new full-length album, “The Spin,” back in April through their new label home of Metal Blade Records. “This song is about the pressure we feel coming from the outside world. Expectation often is the root of pain and we sense the strain of the weight other people lay upon our shoulders. This song is born from our devotion to Killing Joke’s sonic language: our use of chorus-laden guitar tapestries and synthesizers is a nod to their work during the ‘80s.” – Messa
Sailing past their tenth anniversary in 2024, Italian band Messa take another step towards legendary status with their majestic fourth album ‘The Spin’, inviting the listener on a breathtaking journey across the wide open skies of their creative imagination, over a beautiful landscape of moods, twists and styles. From a basis in the band’s eclectic, self-defined ‘Scarlet Doom’ sound, ‘The Spin’ rises and falls, broods and bites, comforts and destroys, while resounding with both instinctive, compulsive magic and obsessive, concerted hard work.
“This song comes from the darkest place and the unfathomable void of oneself. Pain circles around, emerging violently and then drowning again in the depths. This is reflected in the riff: the descent scale keeps coming back and circles repetitively. The Dress“, in this case, is the gateway to a personal crucifix built with self-hatred and mirroring despair.”
After lighting up the underground with a triptych of increasingly distinctive and wondrous records – 2016’s ‘Belfry’, 2018’s ‘Feast for Water’ and 2022’s ‘Close’ – Messa are audibly equipped for the big leagues, and with the help of Metal Blade Records, ‘The Spin’ should ensure they attain them.
Dunne may be a singer/songwriter in the purely technical sense of the term, but he shares more in common on this album with the punks and new wave weirdos who turned up in lower Manhattan and the outer boroughs in the 70s and 80s, DIY misfits who came to crash the party and ended up building their own scene instead.
I never lived in New York, but growing up about 120 miles from the city, within TV antenna range of WPIX, Channel 11, I absorbed a lot of its culture as a kid. Brian Dunne’s terrific new album “Clams Casino” possesses that same kind of teleportation magic, albeit with less nostalgia and more melancholy. Over 10 songs, the Brooklyn singer-songwriter paints a vivid picture of what it’s like to eke out an existence as a 30-something artist in New York today: Joys are hard-won and fleeting, self-doubt rears its head hourly, and the struggle to constantly achieve, or perform achievement on social media, looms like a Scooby-Doo villain’s shadow.
Dunne captures all of that in the title track, a bouncy, bittersweet singalong that equates success with a baked seafood dish. “I’m just trying to have a good life/Clams casino on a Sunday night,” he sings, full of simple aspiration.
It’s a song about class, Dunne explains when asked why he’d write an homage to breadcrumbs, bacon, and bivalves. “It’s about where I’m from and where I hope to go, and all the shame and pride that comes with trying to outrun those circumstances,” he says. “I grew up in a super working-class family and I wear that as a badge of honor, but also, I’ve got serious delusions of grandeur and I don’t really know how to reconcile those two things.”
His reality — like having to buy his mattress secondhand — is always bringing him back to earth. “Why’s it so hard to have a good thing?” Dunne wonders throughout “Clam Casino.”
In lesser hands, such a question, especially from a young white male who plays guitar for a living, could come off as whining. But Dunne’s voice, lilting and keening, is rich with empathy. He knows it’s hard out there for everyone, and in the song’s final verse points the finger back at himself: “She said, ‘All you do is bitch and moan… You really don’t have it half bad.’”
That kind of self-awareness is a hallmark of Dunne’s writing on “Clams Casino”. In the deceptively ebullient “Play the Hits,” he acknowledges he’s aging out of the competitive Brooklyn arts scene. “All the kids down here/They all remind you of you/They’re a little big younger with a little bit more hunger,” he sings, before capping the verse with a sharp, self-inflicted wound — “And they look good in leather too.”
In the devastating “I Watched the Light,” about being ground down to the point where any glimmer is extinguished, he begins with an anecdote of someone turning tail. “Heard you were leaving, moving to Cleveland/Said it’s not as bad as it looks, or sounds/’Cause after a while, man, it’s all Ohio, man,” he rationalizes. When Dunne performed the song earlier this year for a room full of tourists at the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, he apologized to anyone visiting from Ohio.
He needn’t have worried. “I Watched the Light,” like so many of the best songs on “Clams Casino”, establishes this as an album about the good and bad of New York — not Cleveland, nor anywhere else — without overtly saying so. In “Play the Hits,” he writes about the upheaval of vacating a one-bedroom apartment. “Rockland County,” meanwhile, fantasizes about the docility and ease of suburban life, where “you and I can live like townies” with farmers markets, supersized Targets, and abundant free parking. Dunne doesn’t declare it, but it’s clear he’s fleeing the city.
But Dunne, who is also a member of the cheeky band of songwriters known as Fantastic Cat, isn’t averse to dropping a pin to share his exact location. He fills “Max’s Kansas City” with a bevy of New York identifiers, from the defunct rock club of the title to a Lou Reed namecheck, as he wanders the downtown streets on an “endless search for meaning.”
After consuming “half a Xanax and an English tea,” he has a revelation, not that everything is going to be all right in his city, or in this quickly deteriorating world, but that he’s “got time to kill” to see how it ends. And that may be even more satisfying than a clam appetizer.
“Clams Casino” out on Missing Piece Records
released September 5th, 2025 All songs written and produced by Brian Dunne
Brian Dunne – Guitar, Vocals, Keys, Bass Dan Drohan – Drums, Percussion Alex Wright – Organ on “Living It Backwards” David Blumenthal – Horns on “Graveyard” Brian Lotze – Horns on “Graveyard”
“Songs to Sing and Dance To” is the debut album by Chicago born LA based musician Tom Henry. Produced by Kai Slater of Sharp Pins and featuring contributions from him on nearly every track, the album includes twelve rock n’ roll songs to sing and dance to–influenced by power pop, garage rock, psych, and folk. The album was mixed & mastered by Jonny Bell (Tijuana Panthers, Young Guv, Hanni El Khatib) at Jazzcats in Long Beach.
Album opener “Close Your Eyes” kicks things off in the best of ways, mixing pop hooks with songwriting that’s straight from the heart ala Alex Chilton. Lead single “Bella” opens with jangly acoustic guitars before eventually building to an emotional climax of psych-punk energy, “I Miss You” leans into Big Star influenced power-pop, and “Arthouse” captures the thrill of a midnight movie with its garage-rock guitars and Farfisa organ, reminiscent of The Modern Lovers.
Meanwhile, the album’s B-Side is full of heavy hitters–“Oh, How I’ve Missed the Sun!” recalls The Raspberries, “Do You Wanna Be With Me?” co-written with bandmate Ben Jordan (The Private Eye) recalls the chiming folk-rock of the Byrds, and “The Mountains” mines country-folk influences complete with high lonesome pedal steel.
Guitar and Lead Vocals: Tom Henry Lead Guitar: Max Pugh Bass: Ben Jordan, Tom Henry Drums: Z Long Keys: Aidan Babuka Black Harmonies: Tom Henry, Kai Slater
Future Crib is a rock band founded in 2017 in Nashville, TN featuring Johnny Hopson, Julia Anderson,Bryce DuBray, and George Rezek. Produced by Future Crib Recorded at home in Nashville, TN.
With the lessons learned from the production and extensive touring of their previous album, “Full Time Smile, Future Crib is back with their new album “Impossible Songs“. It showcases a departure from their typical sound both musically and technically. Adjusting to the departure of drummer Noah Pope, the band rebuilt their sound from the ground up, centering the recording process around their abilities as a live band and their long-held goal to complete the album process completely analog. Using no computers, digital editing, or one-click do-overs, the band rejects the shallow conveniences of modern recording in favor of the challenge of authenticity. In exchange they rid themselves of the distraction of endless decisions and perfectionism, putting the music first.
Future Crib’s 4th LP, “Impossible Songs“, is an all analogue endeavor that has been in the works since the beginning. The album, released on May 9th, 2025is available in various formats, including vinyl, cassette, and CD. It features a collection of modern indie songs with inter-twining harmonies and searching refrains. The album has been produced by Future Crib,
The album’s tracklist includes songs like “One Horse,” “Dweller,” “Clearance,” “Only a Wheel’s Worth,” “Particular,” “Inopportune,” “Good Company,” “Two Tons to Termites,” “Valley Song,” “The Way,” “Crush,” “Neighbors,” and “On the Plains.” Each song contributes to the album’s unique sound and storytelling.
“The Clearing” is the brand new album from Wolf Alice. Written in Seven Sisters and recorded in LA with Grammy-winning, master producer Greg Kurstin last year, “The Clearing” reveals where Wolf Alice stands sonically in 2025.
They deliver a supremely confident collection of songs bursting with ambition, ideas, and emotion.
Wolf Alice’s “The Clearing” felt like the moment the fog finally lifted after years of stormy weather: calmer on the surface, but with so much going on in the air if you actually stop and listen.
The guitars are softer around the edges, the drums sit deep and warm, and there’s a gentle glow to the strings that keeps popping up across the tracklist. Seemingly focused on growing up, and trading chaos for control, the themes are reflected in the musical development of the band. Less whiplash tempo changes, more paused and considered, although the Wolf Alice weirdness is never fully sanded off by the more polished production.
The band have grown in stature and emit the kind of presence that turns anticipation into ignition. They wear their songs like armour, radiating a self-belief; an assurance that every note will land exactly where it should. They elevate the stage, charged with the knowledge that they no longer need to prove their worth.
We’ve been chasing a Wet Leg Tiny Desk ever since the Isle of Wight band floored us with the 2021 single “Chaise Longue,” a song that, like much of the group’s work, is as understated and droll as it is frenetic and infectious. So, when we finally got Wet Leg into the office to record this performance, we weren’t surprised by the amount of playful swagger the band brought, or by how carefully calibrated the set was. But fans might be surprised by how much Wet Leg leans into that more understated side. You won’t hear “Chaise Longue” or “Catch These Fists,” the ripping first single from the upcoming album, moisturizer. Instead, singer Rhian Teasdale and the rest of the band chose to spotlight the album’s core themes: the joy of being in love in a state of bliss. That’s not to say it’s a quiet or entirely restrained set. The band opens with “CPR,” a heady alarm about obsession and the ways unchecked love can dismantle you, followed by a preview of the not-yet-released“mangetout” from “moisturizer“.
They also perform the carefree, sunny-day single “davina mccall,” a showcase for Teasdale’s gorgeous voice, before closing with another unreleased track from “moisturizer” and one the band says it’s never played live for anyone before a languid, dreamy ode to the enduring power of love called “11:21.”
SET LIST: “CPR” “mangetout” “davina mccall” “11:21”
L.A. Witch play a psychedelic, post-punk, drugged out drone blues that has become refined to scuzzy psych perfection on their third album. Emerging from the Southern California underground in a mist of dry ice and kick-ass tunes, L.A. Witch released their eponymous album in 2017. They are the bastard offspring of an alternative California where Hope Sandoval took too many drugs, joined The Fuzztones then jumped ship to form an English early 80’s goth band. They create a psychedelic, post-punk, drugged-out drone blues that has become refined to scuzzy psych perfection on third album “DOGGOD2. It’s a wistful, dreamy minimalist sound with gritty goth guitars.
The scene is set on album opener, “Icicle”, with its echoing vocals over a guitar fed through a flanger and backed by tribal drums. It’s a wistful, dreamy minimalist sound with gritty goth guitars. The vocals, as on many of the tracks, sound as though the vocalist is in another room, hearing the music in a dream; it creates an ethereal, sensuous tone.
There is more goth like sounds on “Kiss Me Deep”, with its dreamy, swirling sound, of longing and desire. It probes the longing of the heart and finds passion and despair. The music is akin to the swirling confusion that passion and desire bring. As in all great goth songs it is steeped in sensual longing and a surrender to fate.
The title song has a stripped back feel to the music, with the drums beating the backbeat into submission and the guitar and bass creating a classic rock groove. The lyrics are about submission: You like me best when I’m in distress.
Vocalist and guitarist Sade Sanchez says of “DOGGOD” “I feel like I’m some sort of servant or slave to love. There’s a willingness to die for love in the process of serving it or suffering for it or in search of it… just in the way a loyal, devoted servant dog would. There is this symbolic connection between women and dogs that expresses women’s subordinate position in society. And anything that embodies such divine characteristics never deserved to be a word used as an insult.”
There is similar yearning over swirling guitars, with a very cool drum beat behind it on SOS. Sticking with that early 80s sound, “I Hunt You Pray“, is driven by a Cure bass line with a guitar that jangles down your spinal chord, bending like strung out tension whilst the drums beat out a sinister rhythm. The vocals echo from the grave, from a place we don’t want to be. A song for the forgotten and the abandoned.
The band haven’t forgotten how to punk it up in a garage style though. “777” opens with a heavy punk riff that drives on as the drums hammer out the beat and the bass drives relentlessly, pushing on, whilst the vocals hover on the edge of a void, drifting through the music like a ghost of love’s past. It’s a cool blend of driving punk and ethereal smoke and mirrors. Likewise, on “The Lines” the band rock out behind the vocals which shimmer and accuse. The vocals anchor the song as it threatens to accelerate away into chaos, whilst an organ adds something (un)holy to the mix.
The album was recorded at Motorbass studios in Paris, and the city has clearly seeped into the pores of the band and the grooves of the record, with its gothic art and ghosts of the cafes and avenues. It plays as a soundtrack to draping oneself across Jim Morrison’s grave in Père-Lachaise.
L.A. Witch are Sade Sanchez (guitar/vocals), Irita Pai (bass), and Ellie English (drums),
The Cords have released the best indie pop album of 2025. It has songs, style and will stick in your head for the rest of your life. Simply the best. Comprised of sisters Eva and Grace Tedeschi, the duo began playing drums at a young age. Their love for 80s and 90s indie music led them to form a band together, with Grace on drums and Eva on guitar.
The sisters quickly gained popularity, with their cassette and flexi single selling out in hours. They played gigs with renowned Scottish pop bands like The Vaselines, Camera Obscura, and Belle and Sebastian, as well as newer indiepop groups like the Umbrellas and Chime School. The Cords’ eagerly-awaited debut album will be co-released by Skep Wax and Slumberland Records.
Do you remember that you would have been listening to John Peel religiously, pouring each week over the NME, Melody Maker and occasionally Sounds… these teen sisters have come to this themselves, the Sarah Records DIY aesthetic, with fold-around sleeve and inserts whilst soaking up their parents’ record collections (The Cure, BMX Bandits and Nirvana I believe). What they’ve done to date hasn’t been cynically calculated or done as marketing, it’s been a pure love for a scene/movement or, as they put it they’re just, ‘A Scottish, jangle, DIY indie pop sister duo who channel classic C86 straight from the heart’. The Cords have taken familiar ingredients from what’s gone before and created something utterly fresh. Older indie fans may hear echoes of The Shop Assistants and Tiger Trap but will hear something else too: a yearning, dreamy melodic power that takes the songs into darker, stranger places.
Their music has been compared to bands like The Shop Assistants and Talulah Gosh, but with a unique dreamy melodic power that sets them apart. The album features catchy pop tunes like “Fabulist” and “Just Don’t Know (How To Be You)”, as well as more introspective tracks like “October” and “When You Said Goodbye”.
Produced by Jonny Scott and Simon Liddel, the record showcases Eva’s sinuous guitar and silky vocals, along with Grace’s expressive drumming. The first single from The Cords’ debut album (release date: 26th September 2025) “Fabulist” was released on 22nd July and is available as a very limited transparent lathe-cut 7″ and as a CD single on Skep Wax Records (Europe) and Slumberland Records (America).
Sunny War is an Americana singer/songwriter based in Chattanooga, Tennessee with a punk edge, and her upcoming album features two punk legends, Steve Ignorant of Crass and John Doe of X. She’s the finger-picking blueswoman whose life was changed by the punk band Crass – and went viral for busking while homeless. She talks about ghosts, her ‘smelly’ childhood and fighting the far right.
Sunny War delivers another stunning album of punk folk and blues with a full band and guest musicians of old school punks. Seeing her on the streets of LA and seeing where she is now is testament to her strength and belief. She could have faded away – people would see the video and wonder what happened to that bad ass guitar playing homeless girl and probably determined that her talent had been subsumed by drugs and drink. But she became more than that. More than a cliché. She rose above. She inspires.
“Ghosts”, an exploration of her father’s death and its aftermath, appears on her new album, “Armageddon in a Summer Dress”. It is a fantastic record, more evidence of a song writing talent who has attracted the attention of Willie Nelson (who covered her song “If It Wasn’t Broken” on his last album) and Mitski, who invited War to support her most recent New York shows. It deals in Americana deeply rooted in blues – War is a devotee of Elizabeth Cotten, whose song “Freight Train” became a skiffle-era standard, and plays guitar with a distinctive “crab claw” finger-picking style more commonly used on a banjo – but also displays her longstanding love for anarcho-punk.
“Everybody I love is punk,” she shrugs. “As a kid, those are the only people that would be friends with me, because maybe I was a little bit smelly and I had a drinking problem.”
Once a member of a punk duo with the spectacular name the Anus Kings, War has old Discharge and Multi-Death Corporations posters on the wall of her home; she is frequently seen sporting Rudimentary Peni and Conflict T-shirts. The lyrics on “Armageddon in a Summer Dress” cover everything from romance to the urge to switch off from the incessant news cycle. There are definitely moments when they sound remarkably like the barked contents of a 7in punk single: “Sucking dick for a dollar’s not the only way to ho / We sell labour, we sell hours, sell our power, sell our souls.” Even her stage name makes her sound like a member of a punk band – her real name is Sydney Ward
Signed to a local label and then to the longstanding Americana institution New West – home to Steve Earle, Drive-By Truckers and Elvis Costello and T Bone Burnett’s the Coward Brothers. Her breakthrough came with 2023’s “Anarchist Gospel”, which featured contributions from alt-country royalty David Rawlings. The years of busking prepared her for touring life. “I don’t have a lot of fear that some other performers have, because all the craziest shit that could happen while you’re playing has already happened to me,” she says. “I’ve had gangs of teenagers heckle me. I’ve had a crackhead steal all of my tips out of my guitar case and run away. And I pay a lot of attention to how people react to songs, because as a busker you’re always trying to figure it out: oh, people tip really good if you play this.”
The album also features appearances by Valerie June, Tré Burt, Jack Lawrence of the Raconteurs, Kyshona Armstrong, John James Tourville of The Deslondes, and more. The songs with Steve Ignorant and Tré Burt are out now, and both are great.
The Fat Angel Sings 