When Dublin’sGurriers released 2024 debut album “Come And See“, they underlined their status as a visceral, unignorable new voice in the thriving Irish punk scene. Since then they have carved out a steadily escalating reputation for bone-rattling, mosh-ready live shows. “Come And See” pushed their lyrical chops and curious, socially exploratory outlook to the fore too, platforming songs about digital angst and IRL terror in the modern world.
The quintet’s superb second album might be called “Nobody’s Coming To Save You“, then, but it could easily be subtitled ‘harder, better, faster, stronger’. Recorded at Donegal’s Attica Studios and Holy Mountain Studios in London with producers Mark Bowen of Idles and Loren Humphrey (Geese, Cameron Winter), alongside engineer Chris Fullard (Idles, Sunn O))) and world-renowned mixer John Congleton (St. Vincent, Modest Mouse, Swans), the crack team that readily assembled for album number two speaks volumes of its quality from the off.
This is Gurriers taking all the musical chemistry and smart, interrogational worldview that made them great in the first place, and souping it up to the next level.
“A reckoning,” Mary Gauthier writes on the outer sleeve to her new album, “can be personal, political, or spiritual. These songs inhabit all three realms at once.” Yes. Yes, they do. Mary’s most celebrated songs “I Drink”, “Mercy Now”, “Drag Queens in Limousines” are confessional stories, closely observed, clear-eyed and compassionate. She sings with the unmistakable languor of her native Louisiana, writes with the bluntness of Boston, where she was once a restauranteur, and rewrites with the fierce precision of Nashville, her home for many years.
Her 2018 release, “Rifles & Rosary Beads“, co-written with wounded Iraq war veterans, received a Grammy nomination for Best Folk Album, and an Americana Music Association nomination for Album Of The Year.
“Reckoning” is a dense, carefully nuanced, profoundly complex text, though all nine songs are presented as directly as possible: Mary’s voice, her guitar, bits of harmonica. Folk music, of a kind, but not a broadside. Nothing so easy as that. Topical songs with a long view, because she’s seen and lived too much of it.”
distributed by Soundly Music Released on: 2026-07-10
Greta Van Fleet has released a new single “Tear It Down,” ahead of the band’s fifth studio album, “Palace for the People” due October 9th via Republic Records. The track follows previously released songs “Play Your Games” and “Saw You Stand.”
“Tear It Down” pairs a prominent guitar riff with lyrics centered on uncertainty and rebuilding. Frontman Josh Kiszka sings, “I’m searching for answers in the shifting clouds. What do we do when it gets too loud?” before the chorus turns to the refrain, “Build it up, then you tear it down.”
“Palace for the People” was written in a remote cabin in Tennessee and recorded there in spring 2026, with Greta Van Fleet and Mike Elizondo co-producing. Elizondo’s credits include work with Turnstile, Eminem and Fiona Apple. According to the group, the record explores themes including human connection, resilience and transcendence. Discussing the title, Kiszka linked it to a London performance, saying, “We played the ‘Palace of the People’ in London, and our music is a Palace forthe People.” He added that the group set out to make a record encompassing “adventure, passion, brutality, beauty, sex, and imagination.” Guitarist Jake Kiszka described it as a rock and roll record “at its core” while also calling it “a very modern record.”
Greta Van Fleet formed in Frankenmuth, Michigan, and has been active since 2012. The lineup features Josh Kiszka on vocals, Jake Kiszka on guitar, Sam Kiszka on bass and keyboards, and Daniel Wagner on drums. The Grammy Award-winning group has released multiple platinum-selling records and toured internationally in arenas and stadiums. “Palace for the People” marks the band’s first collaboration with Elizondo as producer.
After ‘Pet Sounds,’ Brian Wilson made a move toward minimalism on The Beach Boys follow-up album ‘Smiley Smile,’ released on September 18th, 1967.
Libraries have been written about the abandoned “Smile” sessions, and the resultant compromise release “Smiley Smile”. However this does nothing to alter how bizarre and intriguing of a follow-up to “Pet Sounds” this record is. One minute you get exquisite triumphs like “Wonderful,” with its weaving and inventive melody. The next you get what sounds like Brian Wilson inventing Muppet Show numbers / Animal Collective. But if you want a warts-and-all recreation of the Beach Boys story as it actually happened, rather than as it was reissued/rerecorded, this is essential nonetheless. Oh and there’s some song called “Good Vibrations” on this too.
By the summer of 1967, The Beach Boys had racked up enough chart-busters to keep them forever lodged among the top hit-makers of the decade. This didn’t come from repeating familiar formulas, but by moving past earlier trends, including surfing, hot-rodding, go-go dancing, and appropriating Phil Spector’s Wall Of Sound as their own. In 1966, The Beach Boys went beyond the latter by spreading out their soundscapes, bringing that type of rock’n’roll into the realm of contemporary soundtrack work by Henry Mancini, Elmer Bernstein, and John Barry for the “Pet Sounds“album.
Group songwriter and producer Brian Wilson then attempted a more light-hearted approach for Smile, an album that was to be released in 1967, but instead would sit on the shelf for over 40 years, to eventually become The Beach Boys’ first Grammy-winning project as a box set.
The grandiose productions of both “Pet Sounds” and “Smile” began to seem extraneous to Brian Wilson at the time, and despite the lead single, “Good Vibrations,” being the biggest hit in the band’s oeuvre, Wilson left its production ethic behind and moved toward minimalism in order to finish what would become the follow up to “Pet Sounds“, entitled “Smiley Smile”, on September 18th, 1967.
A number of factors led Brian Wilson away from the big production sound of his last four albums, but the primary one seems to have been the temporary “theft” of the “Good Vibrations” master tape from storage at the Columbia studios, where the vocals had been finished. To resolve such problems, Wilson began to build a studio right inside his Bel Air home in California.
The Beach Boys’ publicist at the time was Derek Taylor, the famed English provocateur who had created “The Beatles’ breakthrough ad campaigns during 1963-64. He described the situation succinctly in a story for World Countdown News, one of the early underground papers that began to show up during 1967:
The Beach Boys were able to restructure the attitude and atmosphere at recording sessions and remove the problem of availability of commercial studios, building their own track studio in the Spanish house. The plan worked. Within days of building the studio and using very few of ‘Heroes And Villains’ and “Smile” tracks already recorded, Wilson and The Beach Boys could see their new single taking shape. The emotional effect of having their own studio at home was startling. By July , the album [re-named “Smiley Smile” had been passed to Capitol Records for pressing, and ‘Heroes and Villains’ was on the air.”
The “effect” Taylor spoke of, was reflected immediately in a Hit Parader review of “Smiley Smile”. “The Beach Boys’ long-long-long-awaited album has at last been released, minus many of the incredible tracks like ‘The Elements’ and ‘Surf’s Up’ that had made it a legend in the music business.” What was left was “a collection of deft, cute vocal exercises with probably more a cappella harmony on any album since the fall of the singing group era in the late 50s”.
The latter comment highlights where Brian Wilson had once again been ahead of the curve. In curtailing the masterwork that was “Smile”, Wilson also preceded The Beatles’ ‘Get Back’ sessions, TheRolling Stones “Beggars Banquet“, Bob Dylan’s ” John Wesley Harding“, The Band “Music From TheBig Pink” and The Mothers Of Invention’s “Crusin’ With Ruben & the Jets”: all back-to-basics efforts which pulled the plug on over-amplified acid rock in 1968. By the end of 1967, The Beach Boys would release another minimalist effort, “Wild Honey” with its unpretentious hit single “Darlin.’
Well over a decade later, Pete Townsend of The Who mentioned “Smiley Smile’s” influence in the notes of his demos album “Scoop”, released in 1983. Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac has gone on record many times about the album’s influence on “Tusk”, noting the fade of “Wind Chimes” in particular as unparalleled in rock. Even during its own time, “Vegetables” was immediately covered by Laughing Gravy in 1967 (crediting “Song from the album “Smiley Smile” on their own 45), while alt-rock acts from the 90s onwards have sung the album’s praises, among them Apples In Stereo, Olivia Tremor Control, The High Llamas, Velvet Crush, The Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, Super Furry Animals, Weezer, and many others. Best of all, “Smiley Smile“set the table for the last of the 60s BrianWilson-era Beach Boy albums, “Friends” and “Sunflower.”
There is no grand, overarching storyline to “Save As”, the second solo album from Elena Tonra’s Ex:Re project. Rather, the album – produced by Fabian Prynn and also featuring Josephine Stephenson on cello, Hinako Omori on synthesisers, Ben Reed on bass and Jethro Fox on electric guitar – is the latest in the Daughter lead singer’s catalogue of expert chronicles of the gnawing minutiae of human consciousness: the over-thinking that consumes us, and the places we travel to escape.
The title of album opener “Radio Station”, which begins with stately strummed acoustic guitar and morphs into a trippy song about an endless California roadtrip, is a metaphor for how Tonra feels about her mind. “I end up getting stuck because I can’t make decisions,” she says. Demo recordings live on in many of the final cuts, as on “Sleep”, which Tonra first recorded in a hotel room in Paris. The final version features a melodic loop made from the demo’s acoustic guitar run through a vocoder and a drum machine, which together offer a muffled quality to the sound, like hearing a party through a wall.
Other tracks, such as the stand-out “Am I Even Real?”, a Tonra-Prynn duet on which Tonra sings about spaceships to ask whether she is being true to herself in a relationship, found their true version in the studio. That combination of long-held ideas stored in notebooks and on laptops with unfiltered first thoughts and improvisations is key to the album’s perfect mingling of liveliness and deep thoughtfulness.
The official video for ‘Radio Station’ by Ex:Re. New album ‘Save As’ released by 4AD on 30th October,
Five decades in and The Church remain restless on their 28th album, “Lacuna“. Following 2023’s acclaimed “The Hypnogogue”, Steve Kilbey and co. push their atmospheric sound further through psychedelic rock, dream pop and shimmering post-punk. Kilbey describes the record as “intense, forlorn and exultant”, with the band’s knack for strong melodies still firmly intact.
It’s a rare occurrence for a band to continue making music into their fifth decade, even fewer top off that achievement with one of their most recent albums being named one of “2023’s Best Albums” by a venerable magazine like SPIN. But The Church did just that with “The Hypnogogue”, an album so adored by critics and fans alike that it ushered in an entirely new era for the Australian band.
Starting in 1980, The Church continued expanding their highly cinematic and atmospheric blend of indie rock, shimmering post-punk, icy dreampop and psychedelic post-rock without retreading their steps. Beginning with classic early albums Of Skins and Heart, The Blurred Crusade, and Heyday which built a sturdy foundation, 1988’s Starfish broke into the mainstream and gave The Church the international hit “Under the Milky Way.” The hit single has been regarded as one of the most influential and recognizable Australian rock anthems of all time.
Now armed with their 28th album “Lacuna”, the psychedelic dreampop legends continue to evolve and transform, remaining not only relevant but consistently delivering music that is innovative yet true to their signature sound. “Intense, forlorn, and exultant,” is how bassist/vocalist/founder Steve Kilbey describes the album. With a measured command of melody and instrumentation that only comes with experience and age, it’s an album rife with indelible musical clasps that fasten hold of your attention and refuses easy surrender.
It’s a steadfast talent that Kilbey hosts close to his chest that’s been ever-present in the 27 albums that preceded it (best evidenced by the jubilant, nearly sold out 2025-2026 Singles Tour legs across Australia and North America, featuring night after night of incredible three-hour sets).
Brooklyn-based psych-rock quintet GIFT have announced a new album, “Frenzy For the Thrill”, and shared a new song from it, “Hand to the Flame,” via a music video. “Frenzy For the Thrill” is due out January 15th, 2027 via Captured Tracks.
GIFT features vocalist/guitarist TJ Freda, multi-instrumentalists Jessica Gurewitz and JustinHrabovsky, drummer Gabe Camarano, and bassist Kallan Campbell.
“Illuminator” was the band’s third album and first for Captured Tracks. It follows their 2022 debut, “Momentary Presence” (released via Dedstrange), and 2024’s “Illuminator” (their first for CapturedTracks .
Freda co-produced the album with electronic producer Teddy Mars.
Freda had this to say about the album in a press release: Making “Frenzy For the Thrill” was partially about exploring the balance of living as an artist without disappearing into it.”
He adds: “We’re always looking for resolutions, but life isn’t like that. “Frenzy For the Thrill” is about still being in love with the chase knowing we might not find answers on the other side. This is the sound of us crashing headlong into the unknown.”
Of the new single, he says: “‘Hand to the Flame’ is holding onto passion, and what makes us human while the world falls apart. Desperately chasing passion in a passionless world. Like charging full speed towards something you know will eventually hurt you. Repeatedly putting your hand in the flame with the same outcome, knowing it will always be the same outcome but hoping it will be different. There’s romance in the chase, regardless of whether or not it’s going to hurt when you get to the end.”
Official video for “Hand To The Flame” by GIFT, from their album “Frenzy For The Thrill”, out January 15th, 2027 on Captured Tracks
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
