The Fat Angel Sings

Long time friends and collaborators Etta Friedman and Allegra Weingarten are back with a new album as Momma, which sounds straight out of the mid ’90s but takes place in the summer of 2022, when Momma were on their first-ever tour. More than just chronicling the breakups and new romances of that time period, their best songs shimmer with summer’s potential and immediacy, pairing easy harmonies with the punch of slacker rock. They also expand their sound into other cornerstones of that era, delivering shoegazey riffs on “Last Kiss” and hushed acoustic tenderness on “Take Me With You.” 

“Welcome to My Blue Sky” is an album that’s easy to like, and even easier to imagine blasting on a road trip with your best friend sitting shotgun. The second full-length from Momma bottled up hot July days defined by cicada buzz, cheap booze, and go-nowhere rubber-burning. It sounded like a coming-of-age movie and a gonzo-style road trip while also transcending the I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-the-’90s pitfall once and for all.

Built around the song writing core of Etta Friedman and Allegra Weingarten, Momma came in hot with 2022’s breakout “Household Name“. And while their love of joyrides (so many lyrics about cars) and ’90s bubble grunge never waned, they did soften their focus on “Welcome to My Blue Sky”, creating a more insular album that resonated because of the dialogue between its two personalities. Friedman and Weingarten were likely the outcast kids scrawling lyrics in their notebooks at the back of their respective classrooms, finding each other wordlessly in the hallway between periods. And when they aren’t answering each other with words—inside jokes and knowingly kitschy sweet-nothings—their guitars finish each other’s sentences.

These riffs can flutter and waver like butterflies or slam you across the room á la Marty McFly with that jet-engine-sized amp. “Blue Sky” is always purposeful but never feels laboured-over, glossy but not airbrushed. It’s sometimes the stuff of movie scripts but also founded on shared experiences and connections that are totally real. I guess occasionally life is just that cinematic.

The riveting debut album from the young firestarters from Austin is the year’s most explosive new soundtrack for your local moshpit. The all-female quartet, all still in their early twenties, has mastered multiple hard-rock genres with attitude and skill—punk, grunge, metal, doom—and sounds both blissfully unhinged and utterly in command. 

How good is the band Die Spitz? Well, the quartet was awarded Album of the Year by the Austin Music Awards last year… for an EP! The band, Ava Livingston, Chloe Andrews, Ellie Livingston, and Kate Halter, are one of, if not the best young live act in Texas right now, and their debut album, “Something to Consume”, all but confirms their place in the punk pantheon right now.

Released by Jack White’s Third Man label, “Something to Consume” opens with the crunch and growl of “Pop Punk Anthem (Sorry for the Delay)” as singer-guitarist Ava Schrobilgen roars in frustration and rage amid the crashing guitars: “All this tension / Everybody here can see / And did I mention / I need you to take care of me?” On “Throw Yourself to the Sword,” Schrobilgen’s childhood friend Eleanor Livingston rides a galloping metal riff, growling and grunting a warning: “Take what’s mine, then I take two times more.” Believe her. Meanwhile, “American Porn” is fully flowered ’90s grunge, with riffs thick enough for the Melvins. The group’s 34-minute debut statement.

There’s a great balance in the tracklist, as “Go Get Dressed”’ steady, gentle build turns into a thrashing, throbbing breakthrough on “Red40.” Every song pummels, but not every song blisters. Working with Will Yip, it’s clear that he was the best man for the job. “Something to Consume” tackles everything from hardcore to metal to grunge. “Riding With My Girls” is fantastic, and “American Porn” is a bad-bitch tome. “Punishers” carries Twilight inspirations, and the powerful “Voire Dire” sounds like a sign of our fucked-up times. There’s a trust percolating throughout the record, one brought on by four people who couldn’t imagine making music with anyone else. This is music that yells in all-caps. 

The album captures the melody and chaos without unwarranted studio gloss. By the time “Something to Consume” reaches its brooding finale, this restless gang of rockers are still just getting started and have already raised the bar.

“The Clearing” the brand new album from Wolf Alice, releases 29th August 2025. Written in Seven Sisters and recorded in LA with Grammy-winning, master producer Greg Kurstin last year, “The Clearing” reveals where Wolf Alice stand sonically in 2025, delivering a supremely confident collection of songs bursting with ambition, ideas and emotion.

With their perfectly ripened fourth album, Wolf Alice returned more assured than ever. Potent reflections on love, friendship and aging came hand-wrought with brassy riffs, craggy drumbeats and well-worn piano keys, as the four-piece found contentment in the space where everything and nothing is certain. 

Wolf Alice unveil ‘The Clearing’, a commanding and emotionally rich album that captures the band’s evolving sound in 2025. the record channels confidence and creative ambition across a dynamic set of tracks. It’s a snapshot of a band fully in their stride—fearless, expressive, and constantly pushing forward.

Wolf Alice have previewed their forthcoming fourth album with a new track called ‘White Horses’. Following ‘Bloom Baby Bloom’ and ‘The Sofa’, it’s the only song on “The Clearing” to feature drummer Joel Amey on lead vocals, and it grows into a cathartic duet with Ellie Rowsell.

“I was inspired by what songs we had already that were becoming “The Clearing”; the sonic shapes we were creating, the big acoustics, the harmonies, but I wanted to underpin it with a driving krautrock beat,” Amey explained in a statement. The track was born out of some lyrics he jotted down during a car journey with his mum, aunt, and sister. “We’ve never really known where we came in terms of heritage until recently. My mum and my aunt were adopted, and for years it posed questions of identity and where our roots lay for all of us, but for me, they never seemed like answers I needed to find out.”

Amey added: “I was on this big adventure with my best mates, never feeling the need to call one place home, living out a suitcase, all the stuff that comes with being in a band. I felt that the answers to ‘who I am and where do I come from?’ didn’t matter so much; I’d chosen my family and they were the people around me.”

”White Horses” was me trying to put all that into a tune, and Ellie, Joff and Theo helped me all along the way,” he concluded.

“The Clearing” was released on August 22nd.

Two of folky indie rock’s finest singer/songwriters come together for an entry into the queer country canon.

Before everyone started going country, before Chappell Roan had a hit with a lesbian country song, and even before boygenius formed, the seeds were sown for Julien Baker and Torres’ queer country album “Send a Prayer My Way“. After they played their first show together back in 2016, one said to the other, “We should make a country album.”

So you certainly can’t call them bandwagon jumpers and it should also come as no surprise that making full-blown country music comes as naturally to this pair as it does. Julien grew up in Memphis and Torres moved to Nashville after graduating high school, and their music always had a little twang that really comes to the forefront on “Send a Prayer My Way“. They’ve got pedal steel, fiddle, and honky tonk rhythms, and their country roots are also apparent in the album’s subject matter, which explores Julien and Torres’ shared Southern Baptist heritage as queer people and the skeletons buried there.

Both artists are known for vulnerable lyricism, and they bring that to this collaboration, delving into addiction and shame while also seasoning it with dark humor–like “Tuesday”‘s segue from a dark night of the soul to “if you ever hear this song, tell your mama she can go suck an egg,” or the skit about the viscousness of jelly before “Goodbye Baby.” And even if you’re a Julien Baker or Torres fan that hasn’t fully jumped on the country train, there’s plenty to like about “Send a Prayer My Way”. It often balances out its twang with the kind of folky indie rock that Julien and Torres both separately won us over with in the previous decade. It’s easy to see why they wanted to work together after sharing the stage for the very first time; they’re kindred spirits. 

The sweet vocal harmonizing of Melbourne-based Folk Bitch Trio brings to mind figures like The Beach Boys, Fleet Foxes, First Aid Kit, or Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young—the perfect harmonic soundtrack for sitting near a campfire amid lush, majestic redwoods. An impressive debut, “Now Would Be a Good Time” is warm and perfectly uniform acoustic-folk music that lulls the listener into its cozy cocoon. Underneath the snug progressions, though, we get an exploration of early-twenties adulthood, growing pains, and failed relationships. Grace Sinclair, Jeanie Pilkington, and Heide Peverelle’s emotional explorations of young adulthood are evocative and sometimes darkly funny (particularly on “Hotel TV,” where they’re trying not to think about what’s going on in the room next door). Producer Tom Healy captures the essence of the three childhood friends’ music, creating a bittersweet, reflective atmosphere that complements their lyrics. Even with its minor flourishes of electric guitar, the folky spirit of “Now Would Be a Good Time” remains intact.

Recorded in New Zealand at Roundhead Studios, the more laid-back atmosphere of Auckland can be felt in harmony with their music nearly to the point that they could bill themselves as a quartet. 

When Florida-born Orleans parish singer Benjamin Booker gets the blues, he likes to funnel its lightning-loud, Albert King–stylized classicism with a hint of the crackling garage-rock ardor of The White Stripes—that’s been a given since his 2014 self-titled debut. With “Lower”, however, Booker goes lower still to an icier sonic space, and with the help of shuddering electro-rap producer Kenny Segal he finds the fight in his cause and righteous indignation everywhere.

“Black Opps” looks at empowered African Americans of the past (and surely present) being brought down by the US government. The children at the center of “Same Kind of Lonely” are given dark context within a collage of school shooting audio clips.

Those less fortunates brought to heel by addiction and homelessness are given light and hope, even if they have to claw their way through the darkness to get there. “I see the way they talk about people on this side of town,” a bruised Booker intones on “LWA in the Trailer Park,” a moment not unlike King’s “Born Under a Bad Sign.” Maybe “Lower” is a lot to take in all at once, and maybe Booker’s third album isn’t an obvious choice for one of the best of 2025, as it seems from another time—long before January.

Either way, “Lower” lingers like a haunting refrain and the darkest of nu-politics screeds.

In both its musical and visual identity, Michelle Zauner took the baroque-pop influences behind her latest album quite seriously. Days before announcing “For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)”, she posted a selection of paintings of women looking melancholic before revealing the memento mori-inspired cover of her fourth album, picturing her passed out on a table. She liked the idea of being on the cover without having her face featured, she told Vault Magazine, elaborating: “I wanted it to feel like a painting or still life and then have the set design and props all correspond to a symbolic meaning. There’s obviously the skull, which is memento mori; I think a lot of this record is kind of about contemplating mortality. There are oysters, which are a nod to the Venus in a Shell in “Orlando in Love”, and honey water and a milky broth, both track titles.

There is a bowl of guts, which I referenced in “Here is Someone“, and there’s a vase of flowers, which I referenced in “Winter in LA“. So, all the objects on the table are nods to different lyrics. I wanted to emulate these myths or presuppositions of what certain things are supposed to stand for in still-life paintings. I also think it can be interpreted that there’s just a wealth of goods in front of me, and somehow, it’s still overwhelming and exhausting.”

After a decade making the most of improvised recording spaces set in warehouses, trailers and lofts, Japanese Breakfast’s fourth album, “For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)”, marks the band’s first proper studio release.

The record sees front-woman and songwriter Michelle Zauner pull back from the bright extroversion that defined its predecessor “Jubilee” to examine the darker waves that roil within, the moody, fecund field of melancholy, long held to be the psychic state of poets on the verge of inspiration. The result is an artistic statement of purpose: a mature, intricate, contemplative work that conjures the romantic thrill of a gothic novel.

Having previously released an EP and a few singles, London group Heartworms are finally putting out their debut album, which like everything else they’ve made so far, was produced by Dan Carey who runs their label, Speedy Wunderground. First single “Warplane” sounds like a million bucks, danceable modern post-punk with a Wagnerian sense of drama that also highlights bandleader Jojo Orme’s interest in military history.

Formidable South London auteur Heartworms released her highly anticipated debut album “Glutton For Punishment” – out 7th February on Speedy Wunderground. 
    
“Glutton For Punishment” combines the propulsive, motorik tendencies of gothic stalwarts Depeche Mode, with the lyrical dexterity of PJ Harvey, and the off-kilter rhythms of LCD Soundsystem into a powerful sonic onslaught that is entirely Heartworms. “With my EP, people kind of pigeonholed me into post-punk,” she says. “I was like, ‘Cool, I can do that, but I can also do way more’ – I can do post-punk, but I can also be poppy and catchy, and this album represents that. I think people might be surprised when they hear it.”

Heartworms’ debut EP “A Comforting Notion” was subject to critical acclaim from the likes of The Sunday Times, Dazed, The FADER, The Quietus, Loud And Quiet, The Line Of Best Fit, So Young Magazine, and many more. The EPs singles were added to the BBC Radio 6 Music playlist following widespread support across the station, as well as spot plays from Radio X’s John Kennedy, and BBC Radio 1’s Jack Saunders and Gemma Bradley. 

Earlier this year Heartworms supported The Kills in the US, St Vincent in the UK (which included the Royal Albert Hall), and Jack White at London’s Islington Assembly Hall. She also played her biggest headline show to date at a sold out Village Underground in November last year. 

Things I said to myself in the first 15 minutes of encountering this band, their album art and promo image, and the first few tracks: “Is this a metal band?” “Oh! No, this is synth pop.”
“Wait, nope, listen to those guitars, this is an indie rock band.” “Wait I think this is actually a post-punk band in disguise!”
“Ooh, it’s not a band at all, it’s one woman [whose name is Jojo Orme] doing everything!”
“This is a debut!??” The album’s quite a ride, and I highly recommend it. Highlights: “Warplanes,” “Jacked,” “Mad Catch”

The concept tying together every last note and lyric of ‘Earth-Sized Worlds’ – the debut album from the London/Oxford self-dubbed ‘Flowerkraut’ collective Mandrake Handshake – is an awfully simple one: ‘Welcome to Space Beach’. A mantra to unite under one aesthetic roof the various creative compulsions of this complex, multi-limbed organism – varying at any one time between 7 to 10 members – it’s an album that conspires the alienating vastness of the cosmos against the warm nostalgias of home.

Full of surprise, leftfield turns and closeted experimentations, tape- soaked Brazilian Sambas morphs into Kosmische Kraturock crusades, and shimmering avant-pop electronics melt into sweetened psychedelic bliss… “Welcome to the Spacebeach” – the new era of the Mandrake. Here, where the sea joins the sky, and where the trees touch the stars and where we will have you stay a while”.

With news of their biggest UK headline show to date at London’s No90 (Hackney Wick) on February 28th next year, Mandrake Handshake are certainly firing on all cylinders as their debut album release draws ever closer. Having already showcased lead singles ‘Charlie’s Comet’, ‘King Cnut’ and ‘The Change And The Changing’ as they experiment further with their eccentric brand of ‘Flowerkraut’: a hedonistic, brain-frying feast of krautrock, art-pop and psychedelia.

Varying anywhere between 7-10 members – including a dedicated, flamboyant tambourine shaker – their pristine, multi-limbed spectacle of a live show has journeyed up and down the UK and EU in recent times. With multiple headline tours to their name, including a sold-out show at London’s iconic 100 Club and headline slot on the BBC Introducing stage at Truck Festival earlier this year, the group have already ticked off slots at the likes of Wide Awake, Green Man and Manchester Psych Fest, as well as shows with psych-figureheads W.H Lung, Pale Blue Eyes, Triptides and Sugar Candy Mountain, and will embark on a UK tour supporting Del Amitri in December as their profile continues to soar.

With two critically acclaimed EPs already to their name – ‘Shake The Hand That Feeds You’ (released via Nice Swan Records) and ‘The Triple Point of Water’ – Mandrake Handshake’s long list of press champions includes The Independent, The i, NME, Loud & Quiet, Dork, DIY, So Young, The Line Of Best Fit, Rough Trade, Clash, Crackand Guitar World, as well as extensive BBC 6 Music (Deb Grant, Don Letts, Gideon Coe), Radio X (John Kennedy) airplay, and being crowned BBC Introducing Oxford/Buckinghamshire’s Band of the Year.

‘Hypersonic Super-Asterid’ released 4th February via TipTop Recordings

“Metalhorse” is Billy Nomates’ third studio release, following 2023’s critically acclaimed “CACTI” and her self-titled 2020 debut. A concept album revolving around the image of a dilapidated funfair, representing the tumultuousness of life—risk and pleasure, danger and exhilaration.

On album three the whip-tongued Billy Nomates departs the urban sonics of previous records in favour of a warmer, piano-driven approach.

The 11 new songs here explore blues, folk, and piano-driven arrangements that take Billy Nomates’ stark punk sound in a more pastoral direction. “Metalhorse” is the first Billy Nomates album to be made in a studio and with a full band, the line-up including bass player Mandy Clarke (KT Tunstall, The Go! Team) and drummer Liam Chapman (Rozi Plain, BMX Bandits), plus a special feature from The Stranglers frontman Hugh Cornwell on “Dark Horse Friend.”

“Metalhorse” is a balancing of extremes. Reckoning with loss, material insecurity, and trying to stay true to yourself against an increasingly unpredictable backdrop of global chaos, the scales could easily have tipped towards darkness. But the more Maries has had to weather, the more precious those smaller moments of happiness have become.

“Metalhorse” begs the listener to find their own funfair; there will always be things that feel perilous. At the same time, you have to marvel at the lights while they’re still on. Dancing with those feelings of uncertainty and joy, “Metalhorse” is awash with both pain and perseverance.

Tor Maries has returned with her third album as Billy Nomates,  The follow-up to 2023’s “CACTI” was once again co-produced with James Trevascus. Joyful and persistent, it’s described by Maries as a concept record. “Whether it’s real or not is up to the listener, but to me “Metalhorse” is this crumbling fairground where some rides are nice to get on and some rides aren’t,” Maries explained. “That’s how life felt for a minute, and it still feels like that a bit now.” She added, “From the second I started working on this album, every other month has brought this massive life shift that has either been weirdly magical and brilliant, or quite the opposite. What I’m really looking for, now, is something in between.”