The Fat Angel Sings

This new album from An Slua from County Galway is a fine slab of twin guitar fuelled gruff Oi adorned with intricate artwork, They sing about the state of modern day Ireland and their name translates as The Crowd. I hadn’t heard of them before listening to this record — all I knew was that they come from County Galway in Ireland. Their album “Sure Look It” was released through a cooperation between Longshot Music and Distr-Oi! Records.

After listening to it, three things keep running through my head. I can’t neatly slot their music into any one subgenre. It’s definitely Oi! punk, but with a strong sense for melody. Musically this band draw on a range of influences, but centred round a heavy thumping fast take on Oi. It’s in the raw vocals, the terrace roar of crew choruses and the pounding drums- the incised guitar attack of AC/DC, the power chords of Steve Jones and that 12 bar blues riffing of Cock Sparrer/Status Quo (take your pick), albeit heavier and darker. Everything sounds pushed into the red, so you get the full ferocity.

From the first seconds, the band lays out its clear signature: two guitars, a gritty Oi! punk sound, and urgent vocals often backed by stadium-style gang shouts. It works in the opener “Plan of Campaign“, and equally so in “Dry Shite“, which leans even more heavily into dual-guitar tension and build up. The third track, “Arseways“, has an intro and chorus that give me vibes of Rancid’s more playful material. Then come “Big Man Yeah” and “Mountain of Rubbish“, the latter playing with tempo changes — a lot happens in two and a half minutes.

Side B opens with “Agrarian Agitation“, which shifts from a slow build to one of the fastest songs on the album. “Fed Up” brings back the stadium-style refrains. The two scorchers “Thick As Shit” and “Saoirse don Phalaistín” are fast, guitar-driven tracks. The closer, “Gifts From Galway“, is an ode to their home region — the kind of track that balances just the right mix of melancholy and punk grit, avoiding a sappy ballad while keeping that proper bittersweet undertone.

As for the political element already mentioned, their direction is clear from their own declaration: „All people, all species, all equal.“ Lyrically, the band tackles topics like capitalism, gentrification, widening social inequality, consumerism, the housing crisis, events in Palestine, and the rise of the far right.

An Slua are unmistakably a political band in every sense of the word. The album features ten original tracks ranging from a minute and a half to at most three minutes. A fast ride from start to finish. Their modus operandi is straightforward: punchy punk songs with urgent vocals.

“Mountain of Rubbish” is a lament at humanities destructive impact on the planet and the creatures living on it

released August 29th, 2025

An Slua’s members are
Drums: Eugene Kerrigan
Guitar: David Boyle
Bass: Bernard McKeever,
Vocals: Mic Mac Cana
Guitar: Shane Mac Cana

Autocamper are like a breath of fresh air, and one of several bands who have picked up the proverbial gauntlet to keep the jangling end of indie music alive. It would be lazy to reel off the band many influences, and would do them a disservice; you just need to listen to “What Do You Do All Day?” to appreciate they clearly have an impressive collective knowledge of what’s gone before but also with an eye on the future.

Autocamper are the perfect pop tonic to our Age of Anxiety. “What Do You Do All Day?” is their debut album and their wide-eyed reflections on unrequited romances, bedroom tiffs and hungover misdemeanors effortlessly retrofit the jangle pop sounds of the ’80s without any trace of C86 revisionism. Not twee, not anorak, not lucky, just pop: it’s these truths that distinguish them from their peers, the hollow strains of Instagram Indie and the corporate pop that forces us to be joyful. RIYL: Postcard Records, The Pastels, Sarah Records, early Flying Nun label.

Manchester’s Autocamper are the perfect pop antidote to the city’s predictable post-punk machismo. Like a Northern kitchen sink rendering of The Vaselines’ call and response motif, vocal duties are shared by Jack Harkins and Niamh Purtill — their world-weary reflections on bedroom tiffs and hungover misdemeanors capture the jangle pop spirit of the ’80s without the C86 revisionism.

Recorded at Glasgow’s Green Door Studio and produced by Chris McCory of Catholic Action, Autocamper shed their bedroom pop roots on their debut LP while retaining the candid, bittersweet sincerity of earlier releases. Vocalist and guitarist Jack Harkins’ casual lilt often resembles a less baritone, Northern English iteration of Calvin Johnson, countering keyboardist Niamh Purtill’s soft, whisper-like timbre. This classic dynamic runs through the album, yielding a tenderness that strikes a perfect balance — never too cloying, and offering a modern twist on the unpretentious earnestness found in ’60s sunshine pop of groups like The Millennium.

A good melody is inherently sincere as it originates from an authentic emotional space. In the case of Autocamper, memorable melodies are abundant, shaped by an impressive collective knowledge of music’s past, present, and future. Their sound is both nostalgic and fresh, combining the DIY pop sensibilities of the early Flying Nun and Sarah label bands with the jangling, melodic impulse of James Kirk-era Orange Juice, while also capturing the heartfelt songwriting of Curt Boetcher and Sandy Salisbury.

“Map Like A Leaf” parallels the later output of The Pastels, a connection strengthened by Tom Crossley from the band contributing his flute to the track. On “Dogsitting,” Niamh’s pleasantly wonky organ echoes Martin Duffy’s keyboard ruminations during mid-period Felt. The rhythm section, comprising Harry Williams on bass and Arthur Robinson on drums, resides somewhere between the crispness of The Feelies and the pure, youthful pop essence of Motown, evinced in Robinson’s complete control of the snare. Those bouncy basslines act as a shimmering glue that binds the pieces together, not unlike the standout moments of The Field Mice’s Michael Hiscock.

Autocamper add colour to the everyday; transforming a sigh-ridden, pedestrian Sunday into moments of fleeting optimism amid the tangled web of love and life in The Age of Anxiety. Not twee, not anorak, not lucky, just pop: it’s these truths that distinguish them from their peers, the hollow strains of Instagram Indie and the corporate pop that forces us to be joyful. 

Out on Slumberland Records / Safe Suburban Home Records on the 11th July 2025

Craig Finn is a Minnesota-bred singer/songwriter based in New York City, best known as the singer of The Hold Steady.

Craig Finn returns with a solo album produced by the War on Drugs’ Adam Granduciel. The band also play on “Always Been“, while Kathleen Edwards and Sam Fender contribute vocals. “I believe this to be the most narrative record I have made,” Finn said of “Always Been” in press materials.

Most songs concern a protagonist who pursued a career as a clergyman despite a lack of faith. The record tells the story of his rise and fall and redemption.” Finn shared the singles “People of Substance” and “Bethany” ahead of the follow-up to “A Legacy of Rentals“.

“Always Been” is his sixth solo album from Craig Finn, released April , 2025. The album was produced by Finn’s long time friend Adam Granduciel, is direct both in both music and title. As Finn says, “I’ve always been Craig Finn.” From the opener “Bethany”, a moody piano-driven portrait with a distinctive Granduciel guitar solo, to the propulsion of the first single “People of Substance”, to the vivid storytelling and character development that has marked Finn’s career, this record feels at once familiar and fresh.

Recorded throughout 2024 at One Cue Studio in Burbank, CA, “Always Been” features a host of musicians, including many of Granduciel’s bandmates in The War on Drugs. The musical result is distinctive, purposeful, and commanding. This is perhaps Finn’s most narrative record yet. It tells the story of a man who becomes a clergyman despite a lack of faith. The songs detail his rise, fall, and eventual redemption, while also shining a light to sharply reveal the other characters that populate the world he moves through.

This is perhaps Finn’s most narrative record yet. It tells the story of a man who becomes a clergyman despite a lack of faith. The songs detail his rise, fall, and eventual redemption, while also shining a light to sharply reveal the other characters that populate the world he moves through.

Receiving year end accolades from Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Aquarium Drunkard and more, “Always Been” arrives as an exciting next step for this prolific storyteller and songwriter. 

released April 4th, 2025

Produced by Adam Granduciel

Sydney Sprague captures the dizzying intensity and unsteady footing of life’s highs and lows in just a few vivid lines. Her third LP, “Peak Experience” (out September 26^th), takes listeners through the whirlwind of feeling everything all at once – vulnerable and visceral, dramatic and dynamic, catchy yet candid. With sharp lyricism and an electric emotional charge, Sprague’s recent singles strike at the heart of modern anxiety, isolation, and the catharsis that comes from turning chaos into art. “Peak Experience” isn’t just her latest; it’s Sydney Sprague at her absolute best.

Vulnerable, visceral, and vividly self-aware, Sydney Sprague’s latest singles find her spiraling, soaring, and searching for relief in all the messy in-between moments. As she gears up to release her third album ‘Peak Experience,’ the Phoenix indie rocker opens up about anxiety, emotional extremes, and reclaiming control through cathartic, guitar-laced songs.

Since her acclaimed 2020 debut, “maybe i will see you at the end of the world”, Sydney Sprague has built a reputation for indie rock that resonates with anyone who’s ever felt caught between spiralling out and finding clarity. Her relentless touring alongside acts like Jimmy Eat World, Dashboard Confessional, and The Front Bottoms has deepened her connection with audiences, fuelling an evolution that’s both fiercely introspective and boldly outward-facing. Recorded in her home studio in Phoenix, Arizona, “Peak Experience” marks a pivotal moment of creative freedom for the 33-year-old singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist – each song crafted precisely on her own terms, free from external expectations.

From the raw anxiety of “Fair Field” and emotional desperation of “As Scared As Can Be,” to the feverish existential spiral of “Flat Circle” and the intimate, pleading catharsis of “Long Island,” Sydney Sprague’s latest releases reveal an artist at her most vulnerable, visceral, and vibrant – showcasing her depths as both a songwriter and a guitarist.

We discovered Sydney in 2021 for a road trip through the Black Forest and follow her releases since then. Also “Peak Experience” is a lively, sometimes noisy, indie rock pop punk thing, a bit too short, but with some catchy tunes like “Flat Circle” or “As scared as can be”.

released September 26th, 2025

It makes sense that one of the biggest influences on Greg Freeman’s “Burnover” was a photobook, particularly Nancy Rexroth’s IOWA, an early ’70s snapshot of rural America. Like Rexroth’s photography, Greg Freeman’s songwriting is vivid and full of stories that reveal themselves with closer looks. “Burnover” is fuelled by snapshots of frozen-over lakes, open roads, pastures of cows, and specified plant life, and it’s within those scenes that Greg pulls the songs startlingly into focus with plainspoken human emotion and memorably metaphoric one-liners.

Throughout this record, Greg’s Americana-tinged indie rock songs contain a range of echoes, from Songs: Ohia to Pavement to The Replacements to Wilco to Greg’s contemporary MJ Lenderman, and Greg truly adds something new to that particular canon. These songs are subtly experimental, not-so-subtly catchy, and full of staying power. If I were making a list of the most enduring rock songs of 2025, at least half of this album would be on it. 

Like the band Florry, Greg Freeman hails from Vermont, and his 2022 debut album “I Looked Out” (released on the small DIY label Bud Tapes) gained him a lot of comparisons to Songs: Ohia’s Jason Molina, who MJ Lenderman was also frequently compared to early on in his career. The Songs: Ohia influence is still noticeable on his Transgressive/Canvasback debut “Burnover”, but even more noticeable is how much Greg has developed a voice of his own. The album could just as easily be compared to anything from Pavement’s shaggy indie rock to the alt-country of A.M.-era Wilco, and its wide musical range spans from revved-up rockers to blissed-out ballads with plenty else in between.

The album features contributions from a bunch of friends from the Burlington, VT scene, which Greg tells Stereogum “seems a little more low-key than Asheville” but “definitely [has] a similar vibe,” and it includes such alt-country signifiers as pedal steel, fiddle, and group harmony vocals.

Greg’s also a natural-born songwriter; a vivid, observant lyricist with an ability to capture little snapshots of life and turn them into hummable refrains. There’s substance to his songs, layers of depth that go beyond the twangy embellishments on the surface.

the new record “Burnover” out August 22nd on Transgressive Records / Canvasback Music

Despite punk being my genre and being relatively tapped into the music scene I must confess, it was only this year that Turnstile came onto my radar. I saw a video clip on Instagram of one of their live shows, and although the word “raw” is dreadfully overused for this genre, that was the energy that struck me and made me stop in my scrolling tracks. Wagering it must be some kind of archive footage from an old band I was surprised to find this was, in fact, present day punk. Since then, I’ve committed to being somewhat of a superfan. The band’s latest album “Never Enough” has been in heavy rotation for me this year. It’s blend of soaring, melodic vocal hooks and punching hardcore break-downs are frankly irresistible if not outright addictive. This record doesn’t shy away from shoegaze, ska, pop, ambient, flutes, yet it never feels scattered. Each song flows with intent, giving it coherence and allowing the moods to shapeshift ensuring that you stay within its musical orbit for the full duration without being kicked into the no mans land of silent space.

The most common criticism levelled at Never Enough is that it sounded too much like Glow On, which was probably brought on even more so by an opening track/lead single that sounded like an intentional rewrite of Glow On‘s opening track/lead single. But six months later, you don’t have to squint very hard to see this album’s unique identity shining through. Two of its best and most widely-loved songs sound kinda like The Police (“Seein’ Stars,” “I Care”), and Turnstile prove they can swing the pendulum all the way in that direction and still find them for some of their fiercest, fastest hardcore punk songs (“Birds,” “Sole,” “Sunshower”). “Never Enough” is loaded with some of the sharpest left turns in Turnstile’s catalogue; the Latin horns and reggae-ton beat in the otherwise heavy rock song “Dreaming,” the transition from headbanger riffs to club beats on “Look Out For Me,” and the explosive mosh part after the A.G. Cook-assisted sound collage in “Dull” still sound surprising even after you’ve heard them dozens of times. In classic Turnstile fashion, “Never Enough” finds them focused on pushing the catchiness, the experimentation, and the heaviness to new limits, and doing so their way and no one else’s. 

It’s not a demanding record, all it asks of you is to dream, head bang, sing along and occasionally punch the ground. I’m sure there are some crusties out there who would not categorise this as a punk album: too produced, too many mixed genres, vocals too honeyed, but they’re wrong, this is ultimately a punk album and a really f**king good one. 

“Sounds Like…” is as grand an upgrade that any ruckus-throwing batch of troublemakers like Florry could make. The sludgy accoutrements of “Waiting Around to Provide”—which hocks a phrase from Townes Van Zandt—wink into a big country stomp, with Jackson Browne’s melodicism splattered atop the humid parables of Drive-By Truckers. Harmonica puffs tattoo the air, while an organ hums like a guitar chord. “Say Your Prayers Rock” would have nestled in with the sensual and staggering looseness of the Rolling Stones‘ Exile on Main St.’s third side. Van Zandt swings back into view on “Dip Myself In Like An Ice Cream Cone,” as Francie Medosch turns into a gas station poet serenaded by a wah-wah talk box rippling like a bassline. But don’t mistake “Sounds Like…” for some phony imitation game.

This music—part hangout chatter, part guitar solo rummage sale—is a persistent, euphoric choogle. The door-kicking riffs and road-worn fables come free of charge. “Hey Baby” finds Florry’s full-band sound growing ten-fold, with Medosch’s influences of the Jackass theme song and country-fried Minutemen serving as a raw-hemmed, honking template for her and her crew. “First it was a movie, then it was a book” is a sentence-case dream of rollicking gravitas. Medosch and Murray’s guitars collide into each other, stretching two-ton riffs around organ, pedal steel, and homespun, jammy crescendos. 

“Sounds Like…” ends in “You Don’t Know,” a skyscraper song flirting with the 8-minute mark. It’s a doozy, waltzing into view like a scorned lover with a tail caught between their legs. Medosch stresses every syllable, coiling her accent around every vowel. 

Even in a year in which “indie-country” was everywhere, Florry album stood out. On “Sounds Like…“, they come off like a lo-fi garage rock version of Crazy Horse, the Grateful Dead, and Bob Dylan & The Band, a true “road album” following the campfire singalong vibes of 2023’s “The Holey Bible“. But it’s not all ramshackle jams. The sentimentality of songs like “Hey Baby” and “Pretty Eyes Lorraine” tug at the heartstrings like the best country tearjerkers.

Pulp always were the most Continental band of their generation, joining the dots between seedy Sheffield spiel and Gallic torch song. Left to his own devices as a solo artist, Jarvis has enjoyed mixed fortunes over the past two decades. Now, though, he is back in his natural habitat, still channelling Jacques Brel by way of Mike Leigh and Alan Bennett. More is an eloquent re-statement of all the qualities that made Pulp great in the first place. While some of their contemporaries seem content to trade on nostalgia, they are still scaling new artistic peaks. And at a time when the Britpop era is undergoing a critical reevaluation, it reaffirms their place in the musical firmament.

Artists who saw their biggest success three decades ago are enjoying a genuine renaissance—though few more triumphantly than Pulp. Their sublime new James Ford–produced album “More” arrives 24 years after their last full-length, “We Love Life”, and stands as arguably their strongest work since the iconic “Different Class” from 1995. Primary songwriterJarvis Cocker remains a master of narrative lyricism, pairing sly wit with poignant observations about life’s smallest details and heaviest burdens.

“I was born to do this / shouting and pointing,” Jarvis Cocker sings on the opening track of Pulp’s first album in 24 years. Cocker has continued to make shouting and pointing an art form in his post-Pulp projects, but somehow it all just hits better when he’s with the band that made him famous in the ’90s. There are plenty of expectations attached to a comeback record, and Pulp managed to over-deliver, mixing great new songs with a couple of unused oldies polished to perfection, alongside lots of signature moves — sexy whispering, horny lyrics, disco — and a few surprises. (When Jarvis drops a raised-eyebrow “are you sure?” during “Grown Ups,” it’s fan service in the best possible way.) A lot has happened since the last Pulp album, including the death of bassist Steve Mackey in 2023, which ultimately led to the creation of “More” as part of a “choose happiness wherever you are” outlook Jarvis has since adopted.

That brings wistful ruminations on mortality, filtered through Cocker’s distinctive worldview, but also an ease, camaraderie, and sense of fun that has been largely missing from Pulp records since “Different Class”. “I am not aging, I am just ripening,” Jarvis sings later on “Grown Ups,” adding, “and life’s too short to drink bad wine.” 

“More” has already aged well in the six months since its release, and it deserves to be savoured. 

Now nearing senior-citizen status, his musings carry the ache of aging, tempered by the clarity of experience, all of which is delivered with his signature sauciness. Reflecting the album’s maximalist title, Cocker and core bandmates Mark Webber, Candida Doyle, and Nick Banks have expanded to a nine-piece, incorporating strings, electronics, and auxiliary percussion. These additions fill out the band’s live sound and elevate “More”, lending the album a richness and polish that’s as sleek as Pulp has ever sounded. From the Bowie-esque grandeur of “Partial Eclipse” to the disco-Western flair of “Got to Have Love,” the wistful “Spike Island” to the cheeky, self-referential “Tina,” Pulp are back with a vengeance—and how we’ve missed them.

It was back in 2018 that David Berman called Ryan Davis “the best lyricist who’s not a rapper going,” but somehow it took until this year for Davis to really get his big breakthrough. He’s a real wordsmith, and “New Threats From the Soul” is nearly overflowing with his nimble witticisms and canny references. It also just rocks: The Roadhouse Band’s brand of shitkickin’ country is tempered with a little indie rock, horns, and subtle electronics, but it’s enough to get anyone’s cowboy boots tapping along, not to mention the soaring harmonies from luminaries like Will Oldham, Myrian Gendron, and Catherine Irwin. For all the wordplay contained within “New Threats From the Soul”, my main takeaway might be that I can’t get its songs out of my head.

A lot of album covers catch your attention by foregrounding weird, psychedelic shapes, but “New Threats From the Soul” works kind of inversely: its intricate structure is oddly pleasing to the eye before you start noticing its eerie, supernatural details, the kind that also creep into Ryan Davis’ deceptively straighforward music. The singer-songwriter, who did the artwork himself, explained in an email: “I initially had something completely different in mind for the general direction of the “New Threats” record cover. When I went to pull out an old drawing pad to get started on it, I saw a very roughly pencilled-in version of the artwork that ended up being what we did use for the album art. It was something I had started years ago but had apparently lost the vision, which isn’t entirely common for my art practice these past 7 or 8 years. I like to finish what I start, it’s an important part of the process, just in terms of my own internal satisfaction…”

“But anyway, upon rediscovering, I stared at the sketch for about 45 seconds and that’s all it took to feel like this weird abandoned sketch of a psychedelic fish tank or whatever it was supposed to be at that stage would in fact be perfect, thematically speaking, for the overarching and/or underlying vibe of the songs therein,” he continued. “It took some digging in and carving out and slow refining of said themes, but in the end it felt and still feels pretty spot-on in its loose portrayal of a micro-environment for id, ego, and earthly nature to overlap and inhabit congruently. I don’t know what or where the image is supposed to be, exactly, but it feels like a window into the soul, or some sort of supernatural petri dish. There’s a bit of an aquatic-life motif throughout the songs on this record as well, which adds to the overall weight of the image. I’m pretty stoked with how it all came together.”

Great Grandpa’s “Patience, Moonbeam” is as multi-layered as a dream, fully-realized yet open-ended. Though the process behind it was collaborative, the artwork was made during a particularly solitary period for singer Al Menne. “The artwork for patience moonbeam was a welcome point of focus on a tour where I traveled entirely alone for about three weeks,” he told us in a statement. “On long drives I imagined something mystical as I listened to what then existed of patience, moonbeam. I went back and forth on whether the moon imagery was too on the head. I landed on: ‘there’s gotta be a moon what are you crazy?’

My method for the album art was as piecemeal as the creation of the actual music. I drafted the idea over and over. Squeezing water colour paints from their small metallic tubes. I hand painted and collaged layer after layer. At a certain point I printed out, and painted over the top on printer paper. I did that a few times until I got the texture I desired. I wanted something to feel abstract, but whole. Like a dream where some things are the outline, and some things are solid like the moon.”

“Patience, Moonbeam” comes over five years, an Al Menne solo album, and an unannounced hiatus since 2019’s very good “Four of Arrows“, and the time away suited this band well. It’s the band’s best album by a mile, a melting pot of indie folk, grungy climaxes, and Radiohead-esque art rock that takes one delightfully unexpected left turn after the next. It has one of the year’s catchiest hooks, so catchy in fact that they sang it on two songs: “Emma” and “Doom.” Some songs are growers and others jump right out at you. Some are minimalist interludes and others are multi-part epics. It’s got plenty of playlist-ready highlights, but it’s also crafted and sequenced in a way that makes “Patience, Moonbeam” greater than the sum of its parts when it’s heard from start to finish. In an era in which too many albums are intentionally front-loaded, this one gets better and better as it goes on.