The Fat Angel Sings

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).

2LP on Cooking Vinyl. Due 30th October 2026.

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 Justin Hrabovsky, 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 Captured Tracks .

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

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.