The Fat Angel Sings

Wednesday have announced their anticipated new album “Bleeds”, along with the release of second single “Wound Up Here (By Holdin On).” Wednesday recently released their great new single “Elderberry Wine,” then they played it during their TV debut on Colbert, then they announced a tour, and now they’ve finally announced the follow up to 2023’s “Rat Saw God”.

It’s called “Bleeds” and bandleader Karly Hartzman calls it “the spiritual successor to “Rat Saw God”, and I think the quintessential ‘Wednesday Creek Rock’ album,” adding, “This is what Wednesday songs are supposed to sound like. We’ve devoted a lot of our lives to figuring this out—and I feel like we did.”

Produced by longtime collaborator Alex Farrar at his Asheville studio Drop of Sun, it was made with the lineup of Karly, Xandy Chelmis (lap steel, pedal steel), Alan Miller (drums), Ethan Baechtold (bass, piano), and Jake “MJ” Lenderman (guitar)–though MJ Lenderman is no longer touring member with the group. Following the country-leaning “Elderberry Wine,” the album announcement is accompanied by second single “Wound Up Here (By Holdin On),” which is more of an overtly indie rock song, powered by the band’s wall of grungy, shoegazy guitars.

“This song is inspired by a story my friend told me, from when he had to pull a body out of a creek in West Virginia,” Karly says. “Someone had drowned but they took a few days to resurface because of the current. “‘I wound up here by holdin on’ is a line from my friend Evan Gray’s poetry book: Thickets Swamped in a Fence-Coated Briars. He gave me and Jake a copy of it to read on tour once and that line stuck out to me as pure genius so I stole it and wrote the rest of the song in my own words around it.”

‘Bleeds’ on Dead Oceans The album comes out September 19th and the band’s tour begins in October, 

Over the course of a decade playing together and making records as Jeanines, the duo of Alicia Jeanine and Jed Smith have charted a distinctive course through the history of pop, evoking influences as varied as the 60s folk of early Fairport Convention and Vashti Bunyan, the sunshine pop of Margo Guryan and Laura Nyro, and of course indie pop touchstones like Dear Nora, Marine Girls, Dolly Mixture, and the post-Black Tambourine projects of Pam Berry.

Their new album “How Long Can It Last” finds Jeanines grappling with serious themes of personal and professional upheaval, adding weight to their finest set of songs yet. With lyrics that look deeply at time and its reverberations, connections and ruptures, songs like “Coaxed A Storm,” “What’s Done Is Done” and “On and On” combine richly melodic tunes and crisp arrangements to stellar effect. While the themes might be heavy, the melodies and harmonies are simply heavenly, elevating these economical songs and giving each the feeling of a lost classic. Here’s another low-fi earworm from Brooklyn’s Jeanines. New album “How Long Can It Last” is out June 27th.

“How Long Can It Last,” out June 27th, 2025 on Slumberland Records/Skep Wax

The Auteurs‘ Luke Haines and R.E.M.‘s Peter Buck will release their third collaborative album, “Going Down To The River… To Blow My Mind“, on July 25th via Cherry Red Records. (Their previous album was 2022’s awesome “All the Kids Are Super Bummed Out”. They made the album in Portland, OR with their band that includes Peter’s Baseball Project bandmates Scott McCaughey (Minus 5, R.E.M.) on bass and Linda Pitmon (Filthy Friends, Steve Wynn) on drums.

Luke and Peter would like you to fill out the following questionnaire before attempting to listen to the album: 1) Are you absolutely certain that you are currently alive?
2) Do you have the urge to ‘fill someone in’?
3) Would you be willing to die tonight and then be re-conceived?
4) Are you a Witch?
5) Have you ever fantasised about marrying your own father or mother?
6) Does your inner self ever lie to your outer self?
7) Assuming that there is a Supreme Being – do you think that the supreme being likes you?
8) Have you ever owned a VW camper van? (If the answer is ‘no’ go straight to question 10)
9) Have you ever deliberately set fire to yours, or anyone else’s, VW camper van
10) Are you a ‘why’ person or a ‘what’ person? (answer either why or what or yes/know/don’t know)

With that out of the way, you can listen to the album’s trippy single, “The Pink Floyd Research Group,” that features such lyrics as, “Hiding out in the desert in a camper van / Blowing up the compound, sticking it to the man / There’s an awkward silence on the Dick Cavett Show / Up in Chelsea Cloisters we can find our way home.”

The first single from the new Luke Haines & Peter Buck album. “The Pink Floyd Research Group” is taken from the new studio album “Going Down To The River …To Blow My Mind“. Available on CD, vinyl, streaming and download from 25th July 2025.

Genre-bending Tropical Fuck Storm present their highly anticipated fourth album, ‘Fairyland Codex,’ on their new label home Fire Records. Recorded with co-producer Michael Beach at the band’s Dodgy Brothers studio in Nagambie, Australia, the songs on ‘Fairyland Codex’ immerse us in the chaos of a fateful landslide, picking out the characters that litter the impending collapse of society.

Acidic, acerbic, anarchic; Tropical Fuck Storm’s command of wordplay, undercut by snarling guitars, pulsing rhythms, and explosive salvos, populates a hinterland between light and dark. The vocal interplay between Liddiard and the soaring harmonies of Kitschin and Dunn creates a teetering balancing act that’s intensified by the frantic narratives that evolve from their collective psyche.

Tropical Fuck Storm formed when guitarist and vocalist Gareth Liddiard and bassist and vocalist Fiona Kitschin’s previous band, The Drones, went on hiatus in 2016. Joined by guitarist, keyboardist, and vocalist Erica Dunn and drummer Lauren Hammel, the group has released a string of critically acclaimed albums and gained a reputation for their incendiary live shows.

new single ‘Teeth Marché’  glints with gold tooth pleasantries and discordant love as a promise of everlasting affection reverberates alongside a thumping bass line. Accompanying new music video, directed by Alexandra Millen (A Velvet Curtain Production, Melbourne), is a kaleidoscopic adventure down at the pool which has a retro, new wave cinematic flair featuring feminist water ballerinas The Clamms and layered animation from Nespy 5 euro.

“Two languages jammed together clutching at sense like the rest of the world. Marché: market, marché: walk, teeth: les dents, marcia marcia marcia: the Brady bunch. The Teeth Market, the Teeth Walk, our attempt at a laid back wonky jam which contemplates a vision of plunder that is played out in romance, in a climate emergency, in murderous political zeniths- those who take, take, take, lick their lips and want more.” Erica

Neil Young and his new band the Chrome Hearts kicked off their 2025 Love Earth Tour on Wednesday night in Rattvik, Sweden.

The set list, featured a number of songs Young has not performed live for many years. He played a Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song called “Looking Forward” for the first time since 2000, as well as a Crazy Horse number titled “Sun Green” that hadn’t been played since 2004. Young’s set also included classics like “Harvest Moon,” “Old Man” and more.

Earlier this year, Young, a dual citizen of the U.S. and Canada, spoke openly about his concerns with touring in Europe.

“When I go to play music in Europe, if I talk about Donald J Trump, I may be one of those returning to America who is barred or put in jail to sleep on a cement floor with an aluminum blanket,” he said. “That is happening all the time now. Countries have new advice for those returning to America.” “If I come back from Europe and am barred, can’t play my U.S.A. tour, all of the folks who bought tickets will not be able to come to a concert by me,” he continued. “That’s right folks. If you say anything bad about Trump or his administration, you may be barred from re-entering U.S.A. if you are Canadian. If you are a dual citizen like me, who knows? We’ll all find that out together.”

A 79-year-old Neil Young makes his way front of stage to receive a rapturous ovation that echoes across the remarkable meteor crater-like venue from a sell-out crowd of devotees, many of whom have travelled the globe to be here.

Dressed for the cool Swedish evening in grey plaid shirt, charcoal jeans and Casey Jones engineer hat, Young and his bandmates in The Chrome Hearts seem ready for business. This night, a Neil Young show in Europe (the first of 13, including a Glastonbury headline slot and a visit to Hyde Park in July), seemed to be a long way away when, last summer, A tourof last year was aborted, with Young stating latterly that he quit because he was so exhausted and (literally) just couldn’t go on.

So much has happened since Young last came to Europe in the summer of 2019, not least Covid and the return of Trump. Back then, he was joined by Promise Of The Real and they make up the core of this largely much younger Chrome Hearts. They are joined by the masterful Spooner Oldham: the 82-year-old Muscle Shoals veteran who played organ for Wilson Pickett, Percy Sledge, Aretha Franklin and countless others, and whose association with Young goes back decades. Dalhalla feels like the perfect venue in which to begin this latest touring odyssey.

Young’s voracious appetite for getting his house in order got a kick-start in those years post Covid, archival releases coming thick and fast (almost 30 of them) whilst finding time to record three new records with Crazy Horse before his latest release “Talkin To The Trees”. That the new album was entirely absent from the set felt like a classic Neil Young move, as he delivered a group of songs that could define the word ‘random’.

To shift gear from solo acoustic opener “Sugar Mountain”, still such a bittersweet take on adolescence 60 years on, into “Greendale’s” raging eco-hymn, “Be The Rain” was a move few would have predicted. That Young would then lay waste to the electric songs that followed, with the ferocious energy of someone 30 or 40 years younger, was as electrifying as the music he played.

That salvo of songs, dipping back to the very best of prime Crazy Horse, may even have been a bit of unfinished business after that abandoned tour of 2024 – here The Chrome Hearts followed their leader all the way; Corey McCormick’s watertight bass, Anthony LoGerfo’s crisp drums, and Micah Nelson’s second guitar melding into the ether, in a dazzling onslaught (close your eyes and it could almost have been the Horse). Nelson too was at the heart of it all in an early standout, a fierce “When You Dance, I Can Really Love”, stood stabbing at the stand-up piano keys, just as Jack Nitzsche did way back in 1970.

There was a lot of talk beforehand that perhaps, much like Bruce Springsteen’s recent onstage tirades against Trump, But while he returned to “Greendale” for corporate polemic “Sun Green”, barking into his mic-ed up megaphone “there’s corruption on the highest floor”, outside of the songs themselves, Neil Young said little bar a customary “how ya doin’?”

The sheer relentlessness and pace of the opening electric burst could never last, so it was almost a relief to see Young settled down on the drum riser, have a rest with acoustic guitar in hand, for “The Needle And The Damage Done”, followed by “Harvest Moon”, one of the few moments where Spooner Oldham’s lush playing could really be heard and enjoyed.

The sometimes eclectic set veered off into two songs from two reunions with CSNY – from 1988’s “American Dream” album, “Name of Love”, and, for the first time in 25 years, “Looking Forward“, from the largely mediocre album of the same name. Tonight, with double acoustic guitars, the most gentle bass, brushed drums and some heavenly harmonies, this was a song that sounded so very pretty and so very far removed from the ugly album cut of 1999. Muscular, punchy takes on two further Crazy Horse staples dove-tailed into each other, “Love And Only Love” and “Like A Hurricane“, both sounding huge, Neil Young hunched over the ever trusty Old Black, draining every last note he could muster from within the belly of his beloved guitar.

A wistful, thoughtful “Old Man” brought the set to a close after sharp 90 minutes, before the one thing that could be predicted on this sometimes curious opening night, the only encore of the evening: “Rockin’ In the Free World”. It was boisterous and angry, yet, ultimately, triumphant finale and the crowd stood as one, peace signs and raised fists stretching high into the Swedish night. With a wave to the crowd and a warm embrace for Spooner Oldham, Neil Young left the stage, and the first leg of the Love Earth Tour 2025 was done.

In many ways it felt like a bespoke ‘greatest hits’ set, but with enough twists and turns to keep the audience guessing. There’s certainly room to maneouvre a few songs in and out, but Neil Young may stick rather than twist too much as the long summer on the road progresses. Relentless and loud, delicate and soft and yes, ragged and glorious: Neil Young remains a unique yin-yang force of nature.

The Chrome Hearts shine: Micah Nelson, Corey McCormick, Anthony LoGerfo and Neil Young on stage at Dalhalla, Rättvik, Sweden, June 18th, 2025.

What constitutes a ‘lost’ album? It’s a question we routinely ask ourselves, as record companies empty their cupboards of old tapes in the hope of finding unreleased gold. As countless Uncut features attest, Neil Young has been steadily releasing caches from his fabled repository of ‘lost’ albums – the most recent, “Oceanside Countryside“, arrived in March. Now Bruce Springsteen has opened his vault to unveil unreleased full-length records of his own. For this issue’s cover story, Peter Watts’ research and interviews reveal the unexpected nature of Springsteen’s shadow discography: for an artist so closely associated with a specific band, it’s fascinating how much of this music has either been recorded solo or in the company of musicians other than his doughty lieutenants in the E Street Band.

Critically, though, while Young’s ‘lost’ records have been the subject of intense speculation for decades, it transpires that the contents and extent of Springsteen’s archival motherlode were largely unknown, even among the most die-hard Bruce Tramps.

Neil Young is due to begin his first European tour since 2019, including stopoffs at Glastonbury and Hyde Park. Meanwhile, we take a trip back to 1975 to celebrate “Zuma“, his first album with the new line up of Crazy Horse. Elsewhere, we discover the secrets of Scott Walker, War, Booker T and Sade; untangle a bumper month of albums that includes releases from Wet Leg, Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band, Marianne Faithfull, Mark Stewart, The New Eves, the B-52s and Mickey Newbury; witness Iggy Pop live; discover all about the Wilko Johnson play; meet Caroline, Folk Bitch Trio and plenty more.

From Adelaide, Australia the band Los Palms have announced their self-titled sophomore album, out August 29th 2025!.
From dimly lit dive bars to desolate desert highways, Los Palms deliver a soundtrack soaked in vintage fuzz. The follow-up to 2022’s ‘Skeleton Ranch’ leans further into their signature “desert jangle” sound, with ’60s garage, spaghetti western and modern psych influences. Elevated by lush, full production that lets every tremolo-drenched guitar and reverb-loaded vocal shine.

First single ‘Sorrows’, out now with an accompanying video, moves with moody, melodic swagger, soaked in reverb and cinematic twang: “It’s a slow burn swampy trance into the hazy depth of when one loses everything, we become numb, to the world around ourselves, so fixated on where to go or what to do and when to do it.”

‘Los Palms’ is available to pre-order now on limited 180g splatter vinyl – hand-numbered /350 and exclusive to the Fuzz Club store

new self-titled album, released August 29th 2025 on Fuzz Club Records

The highly anticipated new album from Spanish love Songs, following on from their excellent 2020 album ‘Brave Faces Everyone’. Heartfelt and punchy emo-indie-rock at its finest. Fans of The Menzingers, The Hotelier, Tigers Jaw or Modern Baseball should be checking this out.

Brimming with new wave pastiche, fluttering synths, shimmering walls of chorus guitar, and four-on-the-floor rhythms, ‘No Joy’ isn’t an exclamation point follow-up to the emotional catharsis of the landmark ‘Brave Faces Everyone’ as much as it is an exhale – the sound of vocalist and guitarist Dylan Slocum, his wife and keyboardist Meredith Van Woert, guitarist Kyle McAulay, bassist Trevor Dietrich, and drummer Ruben Duarte finding peace in quieter moments and embracing the negative space. 

released June 17th, 2025

The brainchild of Anishinaabe vocalist/guitarist Tashiina Buswa and multi-instrumentalist Billy Riley, Montreal’s Ribbon Skirt are a post-punk art-grunge band making dreamy, swirling compositions complemented by Buswa’s powerful, breathy vocals. Melody and anxiety commingle, a distinct tension running through these songs. It’s all so very crunchy and rhythmic, deftly blending elements of pop, shoegaze, ’90s alternative and riot grrrl.

At the centre are Buswa’s direct yet poetic lyrics, which explore Indigenous identity, systemic racism, the police state, shapeshifter intimacy, colonialism, religion, grief and relationships; vehicles are a recurring motive, both as a means of escape and confinement. The words are vivid, questioning, provocative, yet also strangely familiar, as if we’ve heard them before — from a half-remembered night out, perhaps? A text argument with a former friend-slash-lover? Through a megaphone at a protest? Or during a bout of self-reflection (and -doubt)?

Easy to swallow yet difficult to digest, “Bite Down” is an exercise in juxtaposition, simultaneously dark and dynamic, fun and unsettling. During the inevitable repeat listens, you’ll find yourself analyzing every cryptic note and fuzzy word in minute detail, wishing it were much longer than just nine glorious songs.