The Fat Angel Sings

This week, Editors have shared “Seriously,” the latest track from their forthcoming album “Surface, Echo & Sound”, out October 30th via Play It Again Sam.

Following 2022’s “EBM“, a collaboration with Blanck Mass, the new album sees the band strip things back, regrouping in summer 2025 in rural Gloucestershire to write together in a room for the first time in years, echoing their earliest days rehearsing in Stafford. Frontman Tom Smith took a similarly stripped-back, acoustic-based approach to the new material, in the vein of his excellent solo record “There Is Nothing In The Dark That Isn’t There In The Light”.

Of the sessions, Smith says: “It was a very productive summer. The sun was out for the most part, we were in greenest Gloucestershire, not far from where I live, on this innocuous little industrial estate, it was pretty much the opposite of being in Berghain!”

“Seriously” sits at the New Wave and ‘80s indie rock end of the band’s sound, driven by chiming guitars and a propulsive energy. Lyrically, it deals with finding a way forward when life darkens. Smith says: “So much of the stuff that has been written about us in the past focused on a darkness or a bleakness. But every time someone wants to talk to me about our band or shows me a tattoo they have of one of our lyrics or wants me to write some lyrics down for them, it’s always lyrics that have love and warmth and hope in them. If you remove them from their setting, or perhaps the way I’ve sung them, they’re not dark at all.”

Formed in 2002 after meeting at university in Birmingham, Editors have released seven studio albums, each reaching the UK top 10. Their debut “The Back Room” (2005) earned a Mercury Prize nomination, while 2007’s “An End Has A Start” reached number one in the UK and picked up a BRIT Award nomination. 2009’s “In This Light And On This Evening” also topped the UK album charts, with “EBM” following in 2022.

Previously Editors shared the album’s singles “The Rush” and “Call It In”

Porridge Radio‘s Dana Margolin has shared her debut solo single ‘Big Beautiful Sound’. Now Margolin has shared the first taste of her work as a solo artist with ‘Big Beautiful Sound’.

Written alongside collaborators Sam Yardley and Dan Hutchins, the song was constructed under the rules that anything recorded must fit within the confines of an 8-track recorder.

The result is a deeply emotional, intimate track featuring an acoustic guitar and minimal percussion. Speaking about ‘Big Beautiful Sound’, Margolin said: “We go all the way down together, down a spiral staircase into the centre of the earth where there is darkness and nothing can grow, and we chose to go there, and wasn’t it fun, and right there at the deepest depths of the journey is a glowing ember, something luminous, a big and beautiful sound.”

The Brighton band Porridge Radio announced their split in January 2024, sharing the goodbye single ‘Don’t Want To Dance’, followed by their final EP, ‘The Machine Starts To Sing’ in February. They later embarked on a farewell tour and played their final show in Glasgow back in December.

Ratboys’ Singin’ to an Empty Chair (Deluxe) is out everywhere digitally now!
The expanded edition features new takes on songs from the acclaimed album by PUP, Ducks Ltd., Wild Pink, Bad Bad Hats and Free Range, alongside Ratboys’ cover of The Marked Men’s “Fix My Brain,” recorded during their SiriusXM Session.

And there’s one more surprise waiting for fans: a special, previously unannounced track by Kevin Morby, available exclusively on the digital deluxe 

Not many bands can pull off an eight-minute rocker at the Tiny Desk. For more than 15 years, the members of Ratboys have honed their craft and earned the space to stretch out. “We’ve been watching these Tiny Desk concerts since back in the family desktop computer days,” Julia Steiner says between songs.

With excellent guitar playing, Steiner’s sweet voice, poignant lyrics and a sturdy, Midwestern sensibility, Ratboys has become an indie-rock mainstay. While this set draws on this year’s “Singin’ to an Empty Chair” and 2023’s “The Window”, there’s a deep catalogue of exceptional albums to explore.

“This one’s for the chillers,” Steiner says before playing that miniature epic. The twangy “Black Earth, WI” begins with a midtempo groove, but builds to a headbanging riff that explodes. Across its hard-won career, this is the kind of emotional thrill you come to expect in every Ratboys song.

SET LIST
“Penny in the Lake”
“What’s Right?”
“Black Earth, WI”

MUSICIANS
Julia Steiner: vocals, guitar
Dave Sagan: guitar
Sean Neumann: bass, background vocals
Andy PK: guitar, pedal steel
Marcus Nuccio: drums

Gary Louris is on a mission to prove that a person in their 70s can still produce some of their best work. That’s indeed rare. But so is keeping a band together for 40 years, being credited as pioneer of Americana music, touring with Johnny Cash … the list goes on for Louris and his iconic Minnesota band, The Jayhawks.

The Local Show’s September Artist of the Month performed three songs in-studio from their 12th album “Sanctuary Park”. Producer Bob Ezrin (Pink Floyd, Alice Cooper, Peter Gabriel) volunteered to record the LP after Louris called to catch up with the Canadian legend after he renounced his American citizenship, citing his disgruntlement with the country’s extreme political division.

“Sanctuary Park”, named after the location in Dundas, Ontario, comes with Louris’ perspective of being an American now living in Canada. In this interview, we talked with the artist about his unique viewpoint, as well as the love that inspired much of the writing and storytelling in The Jayhawks’ new music.

00:00:00 Keeping Our Heads Above Water 00:04:08 Mr. Lincoln 00:07:20 American Midnight 00:11:59 Gary Louris interview with The Local Show host Diane Musicians

Gary Louris –vocals, guitar Karen Grotberg –piano, vocals Marc Perlman –bass Tim O’Reagan – drums, vocals (including lead vocals on “Mr. Lincoln”)

Whirr and Luster have been orbiting each other for years, bound by a shared language of glide guitar, buried vocals, and volume as emotion. A through line that’s only deepened by Nick Bassett’s hand in producing and mixing the majority of Luster’s previously recorded output. The Whirr and Luster Split pairs one of American shoegaze’s most storied bands with one of its most vital new voices across four new songs. 

Splits are sacred territory for Whirr. More than a decade after the band helped define the modern heavy-shoegaze landscape, the Bay Area five-piece returns with its first new material in years. “Spiral Again” opens the record in classic Whirr fashion: an avalanche of guitar wrapped around a lyric about losing yourself in someone else’s gravity — spiraling, intertwining, coming down together. “Wish I Could Give You The World” follows, one of the most openly romantic songs the band has ever recorded, all wildfire imagery and dizzy devotion, desire rendered at full volume. Produced by Whirr and Zac Montez, both tracks find the band in signature form: enormous yet tender.

On the flip side, Los Angeles’ Luster continue their run as the standouts of the new shoegaze generation. Formed with the intent of pushing the genre forward rather than reenacting it, Luster fold electronic pulse and ’90s texture into walls of glider guitar, and the two contributions here find the band in peak form. “Against the World” is a love song as a locked door — it’s you and me, us against the world — claustrophobic and comforting in the same breath. “Forever” closes the record in a haze of doomed-romance repetition, a mantra of do you feel it now dissolving into the knowledge that nothing lasts. Also produced with Zac Montez, the songs make the case plainly: Luster aren’t students of the form. They’re peers.

Taken together, the four songs read like a conversation. About distance, obsession, and the ache of never being able to give someone enough — carried across two coasts and two generations of a genre that refuses to fade. Loud, longing, and gone too soon.

Original members of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers take the stage at the historic Ryman Auditorium for a legendary performance of their classic anthem, “Breakdown,” at the 25th Annual Americana Honors & Awards.

Honored with the Americana Music Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award celebrating 50 years of timeless rock and roll, Heartbreakers icons Mike Campbell, Benmont Tench, Stan Lynch, and Ron Blair—alongside Steve Ferrone and Scott Thurston—fill the Mother Church with unforgettable guitar riffs, vintage keys, and pure American music history.

“It’s true, we haven’t played together since 2017, and it’s really emotional and sweet to be here,” the guitarist remarked. “We have two more songs, and we’re so happy to have Chris up here with us.

For their third and final song of the night, later Heartbreakers members Steve Ferrone and Scott Thurston joined the group. Together, the musicians rocked through “You Wreck Me,” a track co-written by Campbell for Petty’s second solo album, 1994’s “Wildflowers”.

Throughout all three songs, the Heartbreakers showed little sign of rust. The musicians still boasted the same unique talents that made them such a perfect match for Petty, while Stapleton – a devout Petty fan – was a natural and exciting addition.

Not only did this mark the Heartbreakers’ first performance since Petty’s death, it was the first time the original Heartbreakers lineup had shared the stage in over 20 years.

XTC legend Colin Moulding’s new three-track EP ‘Want It Bad (The Pep Talks and Playing Fields of Old England)’, offering a revealing glimpse into his enduringly inventive songwriting. Available on CD exclusively via Burning Shed, the spirited title track is accompanied by a James Bond-inspired track and a raw demo of ‘Want It Bad’, capturing Moulding’s distinctive English pop sensibility while opening a window onto the ideas, experiments and musical possibilities behind the finished songs.

The EP arrives 47 years to the week after XTC’s seminal single ‘Making Plans for Nigel’, written and sung by Moulding and released in 1979 as the lead single from ‘Drums and Wires’. The song became XTC’s first UK Top 20 hit and remains one of the defining recordings in the band’s catalogue.

The anniversary provides a fitting backdrop for a new release from the songwriter whose melodic voice and idiosyncratic approach helped shape XTC’s music and legacy — and whose work continues to explore the relationship between a fully formed song and the creative process that brings it to life. 

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers released their self-titled debut album in November of 1976. In the next year that followed, the Gainesville-bred rockers found themselves facing an explosive level of fame they weren’t prepared for.

“Origins 1971–1978” captures the sonic formation of Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers in the white hot ’70s era. Digging into country, rock, folk, punk and soul, this collection chronicles Tom Petty’s first eight years as a recording artist through 51 tracks, including 27 unreleased, live, extended, and previously unheard tracks.

It has been almost 50 years since Tom Petty and his Heartbreakers released their self-titled debut album. “Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers” will have its half-century birthday this November, and Petty’s estate will celebrate the occasion with the release of “Origins 1971-1978″, a new box set that’ll include previously unreleased tracks from Petty’s earliest days.

The Origins box set will include newly remastered versions of that self-titled debut album and “You’re Gonna Get It!”, the band’s 1978 follow-up, that’ll include extended versions of 11 tracks, including the all-timers “American Girl” and “Refugee.” It’ll also include “Live From The Record Plant 1977”, a recording of the band’s live broadcast from the legendary Sausalito studio, with a guest appearance from Al Kooper. Perhaps the box’s biggest selling point is the rarities collection “No Sleep Til L.A.“, which will also be available as a standalone release. It collects music that Petty made when he was figuring out his sound, from his older band Mudcrutch to the earliest days of the Heartbreakers. Seven of that disc’s 12 tracks are previously unreleased, including the newly shared single “Parade Of Loons.” 

“No Sleep Til LA” is described as being “at the heart of the collection”, with the press release explaining of the record, “More than a rarities compilation, it is a 12-track document 

Bob Harris, broadcasting legend and former host of The Old Grey Whistle Test, recalled of their iconic set, “One of the greatest performances we had ever seen by a band at the top of their game. They played music from another planet to a room packed with manic fans, in one of the most iconic venues in the world. It was an experience so powerful that five decades later we could still remember every chord, every song, every solo.”

The “parade of loons,” was the way band members came to describe the increasingly chaotic scene on the road.

One other disc included in the Origins box is “The Cut Out Bin“, another rarities collection that features tracks that Petty made with session musicians, including what a press release describes as “a yacht rock track with Leon Russell.” The box also has a live-album version of the Heartbreakers’ 1978 appearance on the British show The Old Grey Whistle Test.

The deluxe of the many versions of the box set also has a Blu-Ray, a DVD, and an 88-page fanzine with liner notes from David Fricke and Bud Scoppa, track-by-track annotations from the band, and other stuff.

Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers are to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Americana Awards, and surviving members Mike Campbell, Benmont Tench, Stan Lynch, and Ron Blair will reunite to perform with country star Chris Stapleton, who has covered Petty a few times. Two other Heartbreakers, Steve Ferrone and Scott Thurston, will join in for the final song.

“Origins 1971-1978″, due out November. 6th,  available in three formats: a 5LP box set, a 4CD box set and an uber deluxe edition. Each of these will be accompanied by a Blu-ray and DVD.