For Mandy, Indiana, the truth is the only way through. On their Sacred Bones debut “URGH“, the four-piece – vocalist Valentine Caulfield, guitarist and producer Scott Fair, synth player Simon Catling, and drummer Alex Macdougall – are a force of uncanny nature, grafting together a record that is as much a call to action as a parlay into oblivion and transcendence. Across the ten tracks, the band interpolate their own unconventional language into a mantra for self-determination and resilience, forging a template for a brighter future before it fades to black.
“Cursive” begins with a wait, as this steady, hypnotic pulse percusses like the foreword to a beat drop. Then: a pause. Alex Macdougall’s hand drumming clatters into Valentine Caulfield, who uses the French language as an instrument of static. The song’s itchy rhythms bleed into Simon Catling’s synthesizers, which grow abrasive, violent like knives breaking through muscle. Short breaths hang onto the melody until Scott Fair’s guitar blasts skronk and suffer like screams beneath a cauterized wound. “I dance while waiting for the world to disappear, and my dreams refuse to be held on a leash,” Caulfield rattles. Her bandmates respond by turning her sideways. Mandy, Indiana traffic in the unease of bang. “Cursive” is ecstatic art cloaked in disharmonic madness and textural heresy.
Four diabolical Mancs arrive speaking in tongues and then cut them all out.
This is dance music that splinters and squirms and suffocates. the upcoming album “URGH” out on February 06th, 2026 on Sacred Bones Records.
The Fat Angel Sings 