The Fat Angel Sings

You have to wonder why Railcard took so long to be born: their debut album feels like it should have been in your collection for years. But it wasn’t until 2025 that Rachel Love (Dolly Mixture), Ian Button and Peter Momtchiloff (Heavenly) met at a gig, realised that they were exactly the same age, and decided that this was an excellent reason to form a new band.  The shared history, the same pop references, the parallel lives… Railcard had to happen, and there was no time to lose.  “Two Steps At A Time” – the album title and theme song – express exactly how quickly Railcard have worked since then – jumping over pavement cracks and whistling past graveyards to get these songs written, recorded and released while they are still sweet and fresh. 

The band released three digital EPs in early 2026, which were then gathered onto a CD and released by Skep Wax and Slumberland. The CDs sold out very quickly. (New copies will be made available to coincide with the album release.) The critical response to a mail-order-only CD was far greater than anyone expected.

Railcard made their live debut in December 2025 and had by then recruited their fourth member: Allison Thomson (Trash Can Sinatras, The Love Band), whose flawless trumpet and swirly keyboard-playing complete the Railcard sound, allowing the band to fulfil the significant ambition and range of the songs, which are mostly co-written and often co-sung by Love and Button.  “Flannelette” and “Sunday Sun”, delicate and swoony, could almost be Slapp Happy at their most Bacharach. “Foxy”, mysterious and charming, has more than a hint of Kate Bush December magic.

The raucous duet “I’m A Disaster” is The Kinks meets deadpan Shangri-Las.  The title track could have been an alternative theme tune for Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads. “Runaround” is like a school choir doing The Raincoats. “Unstable Neighbour”, mesmerising and insistent: it might make you think of Stereolab; we might imagine an indiepop Hawkwind.  Peter Momtchiloff also contributes two wonderful songs on the album: the fragile and hallucinatory “Paper Thin” and the Love-meets-Undertones rush of “Hillman Minx”.

As with the first EPs, Railcard enlisted the sonic services of Medway psych expert Allan Crockford (of The Prisoners, JTQ and many more) who has delivered mixes that pump with vintage valve energy and reverby depth.

“Two Steps At A Time” is released on Skep Wax and Slumberland September 18th, and the band have a string of UK dates through the summer and Autumn.

Ian Button also performs with The Penrose Web, Heavenly, Swansea Sound and The Catenary Wires. Peter Momtchiloff also performs with Heavenly and Would-be-goods.

Railcard are Rachel Love (Dolly Mixture), Ian Button (Death In Vegas), Peter Momtchiloff (Heavenly/Would-be-goods) and Allison Thomson (Trashcan Sinatras).

Big Truck is the project of Laurie Vincent, stepping away from the intensity of Soft Play to explore a more melodic and reflective sound. Created with long time friend Sam Coppins and a close-knit group of collaborators, the band’s songs blend jangling indie-pop hooks with expansive arrangements and a warm, offbeat character.

“Midday at the Middleway” is a debut album rooted in honesty and self-acceptance. Its songs reflect on mistakes, contradictions and the uncertainty of everyday life, balancing humour, vulnerability and quiet optimism. Drawing on classic British indie influences while carving out its own identity, Big Truck offers a collection of direct, thoughtful songs that find comfort in the messy middle ground.

Formed alongside longtime friend Sam Coppins and a tight-knit group of players, the band feels both instinctive and expansive. Their music blends jangled hooks reminiscent of The Cure and The Smiths with richer, widescreen textures, all anchored by lyrics that are candid, wry, and deeply human – balancing life’s small joys with its inevitable lows.

Big Truck’s debut “Midday at the Middleway” is immediate and unpolished in the best way. It’s an album about acceptance of mistakes, of contradictions, of the messy middle ground, and the quiet confidence that comes with it.

“Gotta Get Out” is The Linda Lindas’ third album, and immediately, you hear a far bigger leap from than there was from their first album. From the ballads, to the surf guitar, to the golden-ticket guest performance (rhymes with Shmayley Shmilliams), to the Eloise Wong-penned hardcore beatdowns, and all the way to the more nuanced lyrics where the personal purrs against the political… everything has stepped up for the LA quartet.

The Linda Lindas don’t write bratty-kid punk anthems – they never did, really. But these songs are weightier and further from that designation than ever.

Part of this might be explained by the band members hitting consequential ages, when everything starts barreling by and it’s only later that you can make sense of it. Bela Salazar, the oldest, was barely a teen when The Linda Lindas formed, but turns 22 next month. The youngest member, Mila De la Garza, just had her sixteenth.

Some of the band’s feet-first evolution might also be chalked up to their departure from the iconic punk label Epitaph. The Hollywood-based independent institution was a logical fit for their first two full lengths, “Growing Up” (2022) and “No Obligation” (2024), but “Gotta Get Out” is being released through Reprise – a Warner imprint, one of the Big Three – which could potentially raise the eyebrows of punk and DIY scenesters.

“We are always so grateful for the people there and the support there, which still stands now, and we feel it,” guitarist Lucia De la Garza says of Epitaph. The band wrote the record without a deal and in between contracts. “We knew that we wanted to make an album, and that’s kind of all we knew at that point. Once we had written and recorded a lot of music that we were very proud of, in the end, it was like, this is it. This is the album we’ve made that we’re most proud of, and we’re just gonna try to push it and see how far it can go. It felt like everybody at Warner was really on our team and really responded to the music as well.”

DIY ethics informed the album’s art direction, as well. Eloise handmade everything, cutting the single and album visuals out of craft paper and walking into Warner to present her work. It’s a delightful image: this multibillion-dollar conglomerate moving to the whims of young people who make art in their bedrooms.

Even with sound intentions of getting their anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-fascist mandate in front of more people than ever, I expected to hear some airbrushing on 2Gotta Get Out”. And while some of the OG pop-punk-indebted songs here do maybe have a bit less of a bite, the label certainly didn’t meddle, tamper, or parachute in Jack Antonoff… or whatever.

The Linda Lindas’ roll call of famous friends is almost buries the lede. It is so well documented that it sometimes threatens to eclipse their actual work. It’s the only thing more widely documented than how they first came onto people’s radars: a viral pandemic moment of them sneering through a white-knuckle microsong called “Racist Sexist Boy” in the incongruous setting of the LA Public Library.

The video seemingly landed on the for-you pages of people like Thurston Moore and Tom Morello, who quickly began spreading the world. The latter has since invited them to play his activism all-dayer, Power to the People, alongside Springsteen, Joan Baez, and other outspoken anti-fascist musicians.

But The Linda Lindas had been a band for three years at that point and already mixed in circles with riot grrrl foremother Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill, who’d seen them at LA’s women-curated festival Gxrlschool, alongside Karen O. After the library performance, the release of their 2022 debut, and their performance in Amy Poehler’s Moxie film, they would go on to add a stadium tour with Green Day and Smashing Pumpkins to their CV. (“Billy Corgan rode by on a golf cart. He waved at us,” Eloise Wong remembers.)

They’ve played with almost every other indie rock and punk-adjacent legend you can think of since then: Rancid, Paramore, Blondie, The Breeders. They even got Weird Al playing accordion on a track from their last album. And just this month the new Green Day film, Nimrods, gives them a shout out. “It happened to The Linda Lindas; it could happen to us!”

Peter Gabriel is releasing a new album, “o/i,” later this year via Real World (the exact release date is TBA). Now he has shared its latest single, “Looking for the Happy.” Similar to his 2023 album, i/o, each single from the album will be released on days with full moons and there will be “Bright-Side” and “Dark-Side” mixes for each song on the album. This is the “Bright-Side Mix” of “Looking for the Happy.” Listen below, followed by a behind-the-scenes video about the song.

Gabriel had this to say about the song in a press release: “I’ve always found it so much easier to write sad songs than happy ones and I thought, right, I’m going to challenge myself here. I wanted to base it on a groove that made dancing irresistible, it felt like it was unleashing some joy. Although this is about the search for happiness, it had to have a chorus feeling like a celebration.

“If you can find what in today, in the now, is making you happy and what you’re grateful for, I think it’s a much better ride—a better vehicle to travel in—and as I get older, I’m trying to do a little less bitching.

“In the song I’m talking about trying to communicate with animals or connecting with nature, or sitting under the old oak tree with a cup of tea and appreciating that. The simple things—opening up to what’s good, while we’re busy complaining about what’s bad.

“Trying to get a handle on where you fit in life, that’s part of what I write about a lot. Also getting comfortable with two contradictory ideas simultaneously has been part of growing old—like being a part of everything and a part of nothing.”

“This was one of those songs that began with a groove, originally a groove with a Latin flavour. The groove is always so important to me, if I don’t feel it in my body, then everything is a whole lot harder. There are obviously songs I write which are not groove based, but this is one where it clearly helped shape the song. I’m always happy once the groove is kicking, it suggests where to go and makes it easy to play through and explore different ideas. Then I can take one look around the studio at any time and see happy faces everywhere and I think—this is why I play music.”

As with i/o,for each single from the album, Gabriel will be working with a different artist to do the cover artwork. The artwork for “Looking for the Happy” is “Closed Circuit II” by Tishan Hsu.

Gabriel further explains: “I’ve only recently come across Tishan Hsu’s work and I was blown away. I thought it had a childlike simplicity in one sense, like Miro or Paul Klee, but it has all these technological references.

“In the way that the song was trying to explore consciousness, technology and nature I think Tishan does that in some of his own work. Although the work is about tech it’s interesting that the work itself is not really technology-based—it is very traditional painting and sculptural techniques that he’s employing.

“I started looking at a work from 1986 which is called Closed Circuit II, and although it has been compared to the original Instagram logo it was created a long time before that. It’s simple and it has face references but it’s blank and full of feeling at the same time. I think it’s a great, great image and I’m very happy Tishan is letting us use it.

“Often when we see these images for the songs, we’re reacting spontaneously to something that feels right and then we dig down and discover that there are similar themes being explored visually and musically. In this case, it was apparently the exploration of technology nature and humanity. It’s great when you find that something that intuitively felt right also has all these other connections that help to make the music and the art feel part of the same whole. In a way, you’re all trying to peel the orange and open up the same fruit.”

The new album was recorded at Real World Studios, Bath and The Beehive in London. Tchad Blake and Mark ‘Spike’ Stent will be mixing all the songs, taking on the Dark-Side and Bright-Side

Previously Gabriel shared the album’s first single, “Been Undone,” the “Dark-Side” mix of the song. Then he shared its second single, “Put the Bucket Down,” Then he shared its third single, “What Lies Ahead.” Then he shared its fourth single, “Till Your Mind is Shining,”  “A Hard Lesson” was the album’s next single. “I Belong to the Sky” was another single from the album . “Won’t Stand Down” and “One by One” were other singles from the album.

I/o was his first album of original songs in over 20 years. Prior to i/o, Gabriel’s last full-length album of original materials was 2002’s “Up”, although in 2010 he released the “Scratch My Back” covers album and in 2011 he released “New Blood“, which featured orchestral re-recordings of songs from across Gabriel’s career.

Recorded with legendary producer Dave Fridmann (Nick Cave, MGMT, The Flaming Lips) at his own Tarbox Road Studios in western New York, “Hotel Usona”—Protomartyr’s seventh full-length studio album—is an effort that finds the Detroit post-punk outfit reckoning with the horrors of our current moment. It is not easy listening.  It’s essential. 

Over the last two decades, Protomartyr—vocalist Joe Casey, drummer Alex Leonard, bassist Scott Davidson, guitarist-multi-instrumentalist and co-producer Greg Ahee—have built one of the most rewarding and often exhilarating bodies of work in recent memory by veering in and out of darkness, grappling with what most frightens us, saddens us, disgusts us, embarrasses and enrages us. The stuff that makes us human. 

Casey has imagined his country as an aging hotel here, each song a room haunted by its own troublesome guest: the slow paralysis of modern life (“Sounds We Cannot Hear”), AI (“Feed the Sewer”), deportation (“Third Country”), warped patriotism (“Exalted Eagles”), violence (“The Knife Dream”), JD Vance (“Converts”), and the often unbearable weight of becoming a father anyway (“Checking Out”). It’s a hard look at a nation in free fall, gripped by fascism. 

Musically, Ahee has built worlds within a world, drawing new influence from the Middle East and ‘50s exotica, finding common ground between dread and joy, a speciality. All of it—Leonard’s drumming in particular—is rendered more tangible and terrifying by Fridmann, whose son, Jon, contributes horns. You can feel the stakes in every song, feel the band levitating to meet them. They’ve never sounded more powerful.  

Now they have shared the album’s second single, “Feed the Sewer,” via a music video.

Frontman Joe Casey had this to say about “Feed the Sewer” in a press release: “The title comes from a line of dialogue in a Peter Greenaway movie. The sentiment of the song is that artificial intelligence is against humanity. The belief is that people are often willing to destroy the world in exchange for convenience. The lyrics are the usual mish-mash of political fears, personal grievances, literary references, and poop jokes. The music is very loud, like a data center.”

Andrew Theodore Balasia directed the song’s video and says: “Loneliness in the age of surveillance is the theme we explored for this video. The motel becomes a physical microcosm of data collection, each room a profile—each guest willingly paying to stay in a room that is being monitored by strangers. The banality of what’s being observed becomes its own source of unease, stripping away spectacle until all that remains is the dull, unsettling desire to connect with anything.”

Detroit-formed post-punkers Protomartyr are releasing a new album, “Hotel Usona“, on September 25th via Domino.

Johnny Marr is releasing a new album, “The Age of Everything”, on October 2nd via BMG. Now he has shared its latest single, “It’s Time,” via a music video. The video consists of live footage shot at Castlefield Bowl on July 9th, 2026.

“‘It’s Time’ is my way of singing about some worldly issues but finding defiance, in idealism,” Marr says in a press release. “I wanted a lyric that matched the exuberance of the music but is actually about resisting cynicism and corruption: ‘Everybody ain’t making it, change the weather and breaking it. Mobilize to know the truth. Open eyes to know the truth.’ I guess it’s about the assholes with dodgy views.”

Marr wrote the album in London and recorded it in Manchester.

“This is the record that’s been the most cathartic,” he said in a previous press release. “The title came to me early in the process and became an inescapable idea. It seemed to sum up the way I think a lot of people are feeling. It’s all encompassing, but it’s not necessarily a negative statement. There’s a sense of overwhelm in the culture brought about by technology, but looking at it with a different light, there could also be a sense of possibility.”

Previously he shared the album’s first single, “Spin,” via a music video. That was followed by “Ophelia.”

“The Age of Everything” is Johnny Marr’s fifth full-length studio record. Written in London, developed live on the road across the East Coast of North America and recorded in Manchester, “The Age of Everything” captures the energy and tensions of the city. Sharp, fast and dynamic, filled with ideas and possibilities. “This is the record that’s been the most cathartic. The title came to me early in the process and became an inescapable idea. It seemed to sum up the way I think a lot of people are feeling. It’s all encompassing, but it’s not necessarily a negative statement. There’s a sense of overwhelm in the culture brought about by technology, but looking at it with a different light, there could also be a sense of possibility.” – Johnny Marr.

“The Age of Everything” follows 2022’s “Fever Dreams Pts 1-4″, which was first released as a series of EPs.

“The Age of Everything” Due Out October 2nd via BMG

Jim James of My Morning Jacket is releasing a new solo album, “Wowed Out“, this Friday via ATO. Now he has shared the album’s third single, “Lost Child,” via a music video. Joshua Shoemaker directed the video.

“‘Lost Child’ coalesced around a sweetly shuffling beat and piano sampled from R&B singer Maxine Brown’s ‘Oh No Not My Baby’ (a 1964 single co-written by Carole King),” says James in a press release. “I heard that song, and it blew my mind, and as I was writing ‘Lost Child’ it somehow reminded me of all those pieces I’d been wanting to finish for so long.

“A major theme in my life is feeling a little lost in a world I don’t understand. Most days I look at all the violence and hatred, and I can’t believe it’s happening—it’s like I wandered into the wrong dimension. ‘Lost Child’ is another song where I’m asking for help to try to make sense of it all.”

Previously James released “Wowed Out’s” first single, “Come Again,” via a music video. Then he shared the album’s second single, title track “Wowed Out,” .

James produced “Wowed Out”, building it around old recordings he’d done with his longtime friend, award-winning composer Brian Reitzell (Lost in Translation, Virgin Suicides).

“For years I kept returning to all this music we’d made and couldn’t figure out what to do with it,” James says. “But for some reason, last year everything started flowing in a really beautiful way.”

He adds: “There’ve been times in my life where I’ve felt lost or depressed, but music has always been the thing that pulls me back. When I think about making this album, it almost feels like I was in some kind of dream and now I’m trying to remember what the dream was about. The whole thing brought me a lot of joy and comfort while I was making it, and I hope it brings everyone else a little joy and comfort too.”

With “Wowed Out”, James aimed to create something to separate us from all the doomscrolling and distractions of our devices. “We’re surrounded by all this technology that’s supposed to be so world-changing and amazing, but a lot of the time it just leaves people feeling disconnected,” he says. “I really believe there’s another path through all this insanity, and it starts with putting down our phones, taking care of ourselves, being kind to other people. We need to be wowed by what’s actually real, like nature and love and music—these things that almost everyone has access to, and that still have the power to truly move us.”

Australian singer/songwriter Julia Jacklin is releasing a new album, The Gem, on September 25th via 4AD. Now she has shared its third single, “The Hardest Thing” via a music video where she performs on top of a skyscraper. The fourth studio album from Julia Jacklin, “The Gem“, and marks the Australian musician’s debut release on 4AD. “The Gem” was produced by Jacklin and Robert Muinos and recorded entirely in Melbourne. First single “Get Away From Me (I Think I’ll Love You Soon)’“is a bold and fun nod to eighties jangle rock and to the Melbourne sound she fell in love with. 

Previously Jacklin shared The Gem’s first single, “Get Away From Me (I Think I’ll Love You Soon),” via a self-directed music video. Then she shared its second single, album closer “I Wish,” Jacklin recently announced that she’d signed a worldwide deal with the iconic British label 4AD and also announced some 2026 and 2027 tour dates, including some North American ones this fall.

Jacklin produced the album with Robert Muinos and it was recorded entirely in Melbourne. In 2017 she moved to the city from Sydney. She knew hardly anyone in Melbourne and started hanging out in a pub called The Gem. Muinos, described as an old drinking buddy, is the owner of Rat Shack studios, which is above The Gem. There Jacklin teamed up with Jacob Diamond (guitar), Mimi Gilbert (bass), and Jess Elwood (drums) to record the album.

Previous Jacklin albums were knocked out in a couple of weeks, but she labored over this one for nearly a year.

“The Gem” felt like a metaphor for the whole process, because a lot of it did feel like digging. I felt like I was doing it almost in the dark, just trusting I was going to find something,” says Jacklin in a press release.

Of the main theme of “The Gem”, Jacklin adds: “I want to love and be loved, but I also want to be free. The tension between those two things has been the central question of my life.”

Jacklin’s last album was 2022’s “Pre Pleasure”, released via Polyvinyl. It followed 2019’s acclaimed “Crushing” and 2016’s “Don’t Let the Kids Win“.

Jacklin is also in the band Phantastic Ferniture. They released two new songs—“Change My Mind” and “Dare to Fall in Love”—in 2025.

“The Gem” Due Out September 25 via 4AD

Wishy are releasing a new album, “Nature’s Pill”, on October 2nd via Winspear. This week they shared its third single, “Sensational,” via a music video that features the band performing in the pages of a composition notebook. Jess Dunn animated and directed the video.

Vocalist/guitarist Kevin Krauter had this to say in a press release: heres a Major Fact about this song: basically mitch wrote this killer bass line and we had to rock it out crazy style a la breeders etienne if u catch the vision hope everyone has fun listening lets run it up at a co-workers bday party and just see what happens.

Previously the band released its first single, “Lovesick,” Then they shared its second single, “All the Rage,” via a music video.

“Nature’s Pill” is the band’s sophomore album, the follow-up to 2024’s “Triple Seven” and 2025’s “Planet Popstar “EP.

Wishy consists vocalist/guitarist Nina Pitchkites, vocalist/guitarist Kevin Krauter, guitarist Dimitri Morris, bassist Mitch Collins, and drummer Conner Host. The Indianapolis shoegaze/dream-pop band recorded the album in Los Angeles with “Triple Seven” co-producer Ben Lumsdaine.

Krauter had this to say in a press release: “Being in an indie band feels bizarre when the world is on fire. What can you do at the end of the day other than carve out some space—at the very least I have my imagination and I can invite others to join me there. At a certain point you need to say fuck it and roll with it.”

British sibling duo Penelope Isles (Lily and Jack Wolter) are releasing a new album, ” 3,” on September 25th via Bella Union. This week they shared its third single, “Another Kind of Love” via a time lapse music video featuring Jack making a painting. Jack also sings lead vocals on the song.

Penelope Isles previously shared the album’s lead single, “Thinking Seat,” via a music video.

The new album follows 2021’s “Which Way to Happy” and 2019’s “Until the Tide Creeps In“. Not only has it been five years since Penelope Isles’ last album, it’s also been three years since their last live show. In that time, the duo have been busy with solo projects—Jack with Cubzoa and Lily with My Precious Bunny (who released “A Moment in My Eyes in May; Jack also toured with CMAT on guitar.

“Penny Isles is such a big part of our personalities,” says Jack in a press release. “So it was about time we got back to it.”

The album features Joe Taylor on drums and was recorded live in the studio, at Black Bay Studio on the Isle of Lewis off Scotland’s northwest coast. Prior to that, the album was written on a monthlong surf trip to Lagos, Portugal.

The first as a true three-piece, with close friend Joe Taylor (Anna B Savage, Iona Zajac) joining on drums, and the first they’ve ever recorded live. Jack and Lily trade shimmering guitars and sunlit harmonies like shared secrets, while Joe Taylor anchors it all: falsetto drifting wistfully above, drums crashing below. These are songs that read like postcards or pages ripped from a diary and slipped under someone’s door. Recording the album live has kept the ink wet and the page still warm.