Song of the Day: Sleaford Mods ft. Gwendoline Christie and Big Special - The Good Life

October 21, 2025 Peter Kimpton

Sleaford Mods’ new album *The Demise Of Planet X*, is out on 16 January 2026 via Rough Trade Records

Song of the Day: The Notts duo of Andrew Fearn and Jason Williamson and return with a fabulously furious, colourful, sweary and darkly acerbic number, with explosive, passionate rage by the Game of Thrones actress, spooky vocals by the indie/postpunk Black Country duo, and a video by brilliant British horror director Ben Wheatley, heralding the new album, The Demise Of Planet X, out on 16 January 2026 via Rough Trade Records

Song of the Day: BIG SPECIAL - Plaintive Native

October 17, 2025 Peter Kimpton

Song of the Day: Following their second album, National Average over the summer, the witty, punchy, Walsall, Black Country post-punk duo of Joe Hicklin and Callum Moloney, return with a striking number frontman “about political turmoil clouding the minds of the nation that turns moral conviction into apathy”

Song of the Day: Gurriers - Erasure

September 21, 2025 Peter Kimpton

Song of the Day: The Dublin post-punk band’s first single since last year’s blistering debut LP Come And See continues their fierce flammability with what frontman Dan Hoff describes as “an unwavering cry into the void in the face of imperialism and tyranny”, out now on No Filter

Song of the Day: Courting - The Twins (1969)

September 20, 2025 Peter Kimpton

Song of the Day: A pulsating, passionate, dynamic, indie-postpunk single about missing something once you’ve lost it by the Liverpool quartet of Connor McCann, Josh Cope, Sean Murphy-O'Neill, and Sean Thomas, following their album out earlier this year, Lust for Life, Or: 'How To Thread The Needle And Come Out The Other Side To Tell The Story. Out on Lower Third / PIAS

Song of the Day: Sleaford Mods - Megaton

September 16, 2025 Peter Kimpton

Sleaford Mods are back with a bang: *Megaton*

Song of the Day: The Nottingham punk-rap duo of Jason Williamson and Andrew Fearn return with a bang and their first since 2023 – a punchy, catchy, dark-humoured mimicry number about how society is stupidly crippled by social media and separatism – with proceeds from the release going to War Child, the charity that helps children affected in conflict zones

Song of the Day: Chalk - Pain

September 2, 2025 Peter Kimpton

Song of the Day: A blistering, visceral, pulsating new single with strains of The Prodigy by the post-punk/ dance electronic Belfast trio fronted by Ross Cullen about while wanting to feel untouchable, how vulnerability can overtake you, out on after their recent signing with NYC-based label ALTER Music

Song of the Day: Maruja - Trenches

August 30, 2025 Peter Kimpton

Maruja’s single Trenches is the latest to herald their debut album *Pain To Power*

Song of the Day: Influenced by Rage Against The Machine, a seething, menacing new track by the Manchester jazz-punk band, one they describe as “a call for revolution in the face of the oppressive,” with searing, combative lyrics by vocalist Harry Wilkinson and interweaving sax by Joseph Carroll, heralding their debut album Pain to Power, out on 12 September via Music For Nations

Song of the Day: Upchuck - Tired

August 29, 2025 Peter Kimpton

Upchuck *(Photo: Michael Tyrone Delaney)*

Song of the Day: Blistering, ferocious new punk, raging against hopelessness and confronting the spectacle of social injustice that has become daily drudgery for their generation by the band from Atlanta, Georgia, from their forthcoming new album I’m Nice Now, produced by Ty Segall, and out on 3 October via Domino Records

Song of the Day: IDLES - Rabbit Run

August 15, 2025 Peter Kimpton

IDLES - Rabbit Run, from the soundtrack from Darren Aronofsky’s *Caught Stealing*

Song of the Day: Powerfully, simmering, menacing and explosive … new from the Bristol punk band, taken from the original soundtrack from the upcoming Darren Aronofsky thriller movie, Caught Stealing, out on Protozoa / Partisan Records

Song of the Day: Snõõper - Worldwide

July 30, 2025 Peter Kimpton

Song of the Day: Frenetic, stomping, bass-heavy, angular guitar and catchy post-punk with echoes of Leeds’ Delta 5 by the Nashville band in this title track from their forthcoming new album, out on 3 October via Third Man Records

Song of the Day: The Hives - Paint a Picture

June 24, 2025 Peter Kimpton

From the video for The Hives’s new single, *Paint a Picture*

Song of the Day: The Swedish post-punk rockers return with a raucous, swaggering, riveting single with blistering changes of chorus pace, a stylish video inspired by the art style of Roy Lichtenstein, and heralding their upcoming album The Hives Forever Forever The Hives, out on 29 August on Play It Again Sam

Song of the Day: Gina Birch - Causing Trouble Again

May 14, 2025 Peter Kimpton

Song of the Day: A catchy, energising, all-empowering, air-punching new post-punk single by the legendary Raincoats co-founder, artist, bass player and film-maker, inspired by, and name-checking heroines of art, politics and protest, heralding her forthcoming album Trouble, out on 11 July via Third Man Records

Song of the Day: Tropical Fuck Storm - Dunning Kruger's Loser Cruiser

April 23, 2025 Peter Kimpton

Tropical Fuck Storm’s upcoming album *Fairyland Codex*, out on Fire Records

Song of the Day: A heady new brew of Beefheart-ish ironic, acidic, acerbic, anarchic psychedelia by the brilliantly different Melbourne post-punkers with a song about the absurd overestimation of knowledge, from their forthcoming new album, Fairyland Codex, out on Fire Records

Song of the Day: Viagra Boys - Man Made Of Meat

January 25, 2025 Peter Kimpton

Song of the Day: A humorously vivid title with punchy, catchy number and video with this ironic take on consumerism and the art world by the mischievous Swedish punk band, in this first single from the forthcoming album viagr aboys, due out on 25 April on Shrimptech Enterprises

Song of the Day: Skunk Anansie - An Artist Is An Artist

January 20, 2025 Peter Kimpton

Song of the Day: A welcome and excellent return from the London rockers fronted by the inimitable Deborah "Skin" Dyer with a punchy, uncompromising number about creative life, its disciplines, sacrifices and identity, out on Frontiers Records

Song of the Day: The Velveteers - On And On

January 1, 2025 Peter Kimpton

Song of the Day: Gripping, gutsy, greedy, dirty-fuzz guitar rock by the trio from Boulder, Colorado, heralding their new album A Million Knives, produced by The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, and released on 14 February via Easy Eye Sound

Song of the Day: The Priscillas - Plastic

November 30, 2024 Peter Kimpton

Song of the Day: Panache-filled, punchy panic by the glamorous London power-punk quartet in this new single about how one of the planet’s biggest polluting problems goes down to cellular level, with menacing guitars and bass lines, driving drums, and sharp, dynamic vocal harmonies

Song of the Day: Sunny War - Walking Contradiction

November 21, 2024 Peter Kimpton

Song of the Day: With sharp, socio-political lyrics on modern paradoxes, absurdities and inequalities, this beguiling duet with the legendary singer from anarcho-punk band Crass, heralds a new album by the Nashville born, LA-based folk-punk artist Sydney Lyndella Ward, Armageddon In A Summer Dress

Song of the Day: Lambrini Girls - Company Culture

September 20, 2024 Peter Kimpton

Lambrini Girls: Phoebe Lunny and Lilly Macieira

Song of the Day: Blistering, brilliant, angry, articulate punk by the Brighton duo of Phoebe Lunny and Lilly Macieira addressing key, ongoing issues of inequality of gender and sexuality in the workplace. Familiar problem? Just finishing your working week? Let off some steam with this …

Song of the Day: Shelf Lives - Where Did I Go?

August 24, 2024 Peter Kimpton

Shelf Lives: John Hillyard and Sabrina Di Giulio

Song of the Day: Visceral, biting, powerful, punchy, semi-spoken, semi-screamed electro post-punk with a dark theme by the London-based duo of producer John Hillyard and Toronto-born vocalist Sabrina Di Giulio, out on Not Sorry Mom Records

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New Albums …

Featured

Dec 9, 2025

Dove Ellis: Blizzard

Dec 9, 2025

New album: An extraordinarily mature, passionate, poetic, and outstandingly powerful debut by the Manchester-based Galway-born singer-songwriter, whose soaring delivery has instant echoes of Jeff Buckley and lyrics that go above and beyond

Dec 9, 2025

Dec 5, 2025

Ólöf Arnalds: Spíra

Dec 5, 2025

New album: A gorgeous, delicate, ethereal first release in a decade by the Icelandic singer-songwriter, acoustic instruments and her gentle, high, pure voice, all in her native language, caressing this listening experience like pure waters of some slowly trickling glacial stream

Dec 5, 2025

Melody's Echo Chamber: Unclouded

Dec 5, 2025

New album: A fourth album, here full of delicious uplifting, dreamily chic, psychedelic soul pop by the French musician Melody Prochet, with bright, upbeat, optimistic numbers and a title lifted from a quote by the acclaimed Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, about achieving equilibrium

Dec 5, 2025

Devotion & The Black Divine by anaiis.jpeg

Dec 2, 2025

anaiis: Devotion & The Black Divine

Dec 2, 2025

New album: Following a summer Song of the Day - Deus Deus, a review of the autumn release and third LP by the London-based French-Senegalese singer-songwriter of resonantly beautiful, dynamic, sensual soul, gospel, R&B and experimental and chamber pop, with themes of new motherhood, uncertainty, religion, self-love and acceptance

Dec 2, 2025

Nov 26, 2025

De La Soul: Cabin In The Sky

Nov 26, 2025

New album: The hip-hop veterans return with their first without, yet including the voice of, and a tribute to, founding member Trugoy the Dove, AKA Dave Jolicoeur who passed away in 2023, alongside many hip-hop luminary guests, with trademark playful skits, and all themed around the afterlife

Nov 26, 2025

The Mountain Goats: Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan

Nov 26, 2025

New album: An evocative musical journey of a concept album by the indie-folk band from Claremont, California, fronted by singer-songwriter John Darnielle, based on a dream of his in 2023 about a voyage to a fictional island by the titular captain, charting adventure, wonder and tragedy

Nov 26, 2025

Allie X: Happiness Is Going To Get You

Nov 26, 2025

New album: A hugely entertaining, witty, droll, inventive, chamber and synth-pop fourth LP with a goth twist by the charismatic and theatrical Canadian artist Alexandra Hughes, who brings paradox and dark themes through sounds that include string quartet, harpsichord, classical and pure pop piano with killer lyrics

Nov 26, 2025

Nov 25, 2025

Tortoise: Touch

Nov 25, 2025

New album: A welcome return with a cinematic and mesmeric groove-filled first studio LP in nine years, and the eighth over all by the eclectic Chicago post-rock/jazz/krautrock multi-instrumentalists Dan Bitney, John Herndon, Douglas McCombs, John McEntire and Jeff Parker

Nov 25, 2025

What of Our Nature by Haley Heynderickx, Max García Conover.jpeg

Nov 24, 2025

Haley Heynderickx and Max García Conover: What of Our Nature

Nov 24, 2025

New album: Beautiful, precise, poignant and poetic new folk numbers inspired by the life and music style of Woody Guthrie as the Portland, Oregon and New Yorker, now Portland, Maine-based singer-songwriters bring a delicious duet album, alternating and sharing songs covering a variety of forever topical social issues

Nov 24, 2025

Tranquilizer by Oneohtrix Point Never.jpeg

Nov 24, 2025

Oneohtrix Point Never: Tranquilizer

Nov 24, 2025

New album: Ambient, otherworldly, cinematic, mesmeric, and at times very odd, the Brooklyn-based electronic artist and producer Daniel Lopatin returns with a new nostalgia-based concept – constructing tracks from lost-then-refound Y2K CDs of 1990s and early 2000s royalty-free sample electronic sounds

Nov 24, 2025

Iona Zajac: Bang

Nov 24, 2025

New album: A powerful, stirring, passionate and mature debut LP by the 29-year-old Glasgow-based Scottish singer with Polish and Ukrainian heritage who has toured as the new Pogues singer, and whose alternative folk songs capture raw emotions and the experience of modern womanhood, with echoes of PJ Harvey, Patti Smith, Aldous Harding and Lankum

Nov 24, 2025

Nov 19, 2025

Austra: Chin Up Buttercup

Nov 19, 2025

New album: This fifth studio LP as Austra by the Canadian classically trained vocalist and composer Katie Stelmanis brings beautiful electronica-pop and dance music, and has a bittersweet ironic title – a caustically witty reference to societal pressure to keep smiling despite a devastating breakup

Nov 19, 2025

Nov 18, 2025

Mavis Staples: Sad and Beautiful World

Nov 18, 2025

New album: A timelessly classy release by the veteran soul, blues and gospel singer and social activist from the Staples Singers, in a release of wonderfully moving and poignant cover versions, beautifully interpreting works by artists including Tom Waits, Curtis Mayfield, Leonard Cohen, and Gillian Welch

Nov 18, 2025

Stella Donnelly: Love and Fortune

Nov 18, 2025

New album: Finely crafted, stripped back musical simplicity combined with complex melancholic emotions mark out this beautiful, poetic, and deeply personal third folk-pop LP by the Australian singer-songwriter reflecting on the past and present

Nov 18, 2025

new songs …

Featured

Peter Perrett - Proud To Be Self-Hating.jpeg

Dec 12, 2025

Song of the Day: Peter Perrett - PROUD TO BE SELF-HATING (irony and provocation)

Dec 12, 2025

Song of the Day: The veteran British artist, originally frontman of The Only Ones, and now with three solo albums, who actually has Jewish heritage, releases a gently powerful, nuanced, pro-Palestine acoustic number as a response to ongoing genocide by the Israeli government, out on Domino Records

Dec 12, 2025

Dec 11, 2025

Song of the Day: Maddie Ashman - Jaded

Dec 11, 2025

Song of the Day: Magical, delicate, eclectic, intricate, experimental microtonal music by the London musician and singer, released alongside a longer track, In Autumn My Heart Breaks

Dec 11, 2025

Dec 10, 2025

Song of the Day: Ye Vagabonds - The Flood

Dec 10, 2025

Song of the Day: Wonderfully warm, rich, lively fiddle-driven Irish folk by the award-winning band fronted by Carlow brothers Brían and Diarmuid Mac Gloinn with a heartbreaking number about the housing crisis, heralding their upcoming new album, All Tied Together, out on Rough Trade’s River Lea Recordings on 30 January

Dec 10, 2025

Dec 9, 2025

Song of the Day: DBA! A Poet And A Clown

Dec 9, 2025

Song of the Day: Catchy fuzz-guitar indie rock with a swagger by the Liverpool-formed trio of Sam Warren, James Lindberg and Joshua Grant in a song described as “a confessional story of desire tangled with religious guilt”

Dec 9, 2025

Dec 8, 2025

Song of the Day: Puma Blue - Croak Dream

Dec 8, 2025

Song of the Day: A dark, esoteric, mysterious and stylish title track with a hint of Radiohead and playing with the idea of knowing your future death, from the experimental indie/goth/ambient London artist Jacob Allen’s forthcoming album out on 6 February via Play It Again Sam

Dec 8, 2025

Dec 7, 2025

Song of the Day: ELIZA - Anyone Else

Dec 7, 2025

Song of the Day: Stripped-back, bluesy, fuzzy funk with slight echoes of Prince and alt-R&B are conjured up in this love song by the London-based singer-songwriter Eliza Caird, her first single for two years, now off the mainstream and out on Log Off Records

Dec 7, 2025

Dec 6, 2025

Song of the Day: Tiga (featuring Fcukers) - Silk Scarf

Dec 6, 2025

Song of the Day: A fun, sensual, quirkily oddball electronica dance single with a slick, fetish-flirtatious ode to a favourite smooth material by the Montreal musician (Tiga James Sontag) joined here with vocals by the New York band (Shanny Wise and Jackson Walker Lewis), and heralding Tiga’s upcoming album Hotlife, out in April on Secret City Records

Dec 6, 2025

Dec 5, 2025

Song of the Day: Flea - A Plea

Dec 5, 2025

Song of the Day: A striking, powerful new single by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers bassist (aka Michael Balzary), who brings a fusion of jazz and spoken word with a fabulous band on an impassioned number about the state of the US in a culture of hatred, social and political tensions, out now on Nonesuch Records

Dec 5, 2025

The Lemon Twigs - I've Got A Broken Heart.jpeg

Dec 4, 2025

Song of the Day: The Lemon Twigs - I've Got A Broken Heart

Dec 4, 2025

Song of the Day: Despite the title, this new double-A single (with Friday I’m Gonna Love You) has a wonderfully uplifting guitar-jangling beauty, with echoes of The Byrds and Stone Roses, but is of course the brilliant 60s and 70s retro sound of the Long Island brothers Brian and Michael D'Addario, out on Captured Tracks

Dec 4, 2025

Dec 3, 2025

Song of the Day: Alewya - Night Drive (featuring Dagmawit Ameha)

Dec 3, 2025

Song of the Day: A sensual, stylish, dreamy electro-pop single by the striking British singer-songwriter, producer, multidisciplinary artist and model Alewya Demmisse, musically influenced by her rich Ethiopian-Egyptian heritage and early childhood upbringings in Saudi Arabia and Sudan

Dec 3, 2025

Dec 2, 2025

Song of the Day: Radio Free Alice - Rule 31

Dec 2, 2025

Song of the Day: Stirring, passionate indie postpunk by the band based in Melbourne, Australia, with echoes of The Cure’s core sound, new wave, and 90s indie-rock influences, and out on Double Drummer

Dec 2, 2025

Dec 1, 2025

Song of the Day: Sailor Honeymoon - Armchair

Dec 1, 2025

Song of the Day: Catchy, punchy, fuzz-guitar indie rock with a droll lyrical delivery and some echoes of Wet Leg come in this new single by the trio from Seoul, South Korea, out on Good Good Records

Dec 1, 2025

Word of the week

Featured

Dec 4, 2025

Word of the week: crapulence

Dec 4, 2025

Word of the week: A term that may apply regularly during Xmas party season, from the from the Latin crapula, in turn from the Greek kraipálē meaning "drunkenness" or "headache" pertains to sickness symptoms caused by excess in eating or drinking, or general intemperance and overindulgence

Dec 4, 2025

Nov 20, 2025

Word of the week: discalceate

Nov 20, 2025

Word of the week: A rarely used, but often practised verb, especially when arriving home, it means to take off your shoes, but is also a slightly more common adjective meaning barefoot or unshod, particularly for certain religious orders that wear sandals instead of shoes. But in what context does this come up in song?

Nov 20, 2025

Nov 6, 2025

Word of the week: erythrophyll

Nov 6, 2025

Word of the week: A seasonally topical word relating to the the red pigment of tree leaves, fruits and flowers, that appears particularly when changing in autumn, as opposed to the green effect of chlorophyll, from the Greek erythros for red, and phyll for leaves. But what of songs about this?

Nov 6, 2025

Oct 22, 2025

Word of the week: fennec

Oct 22, 2025

Word of the week: It’s a small pale-fawn nocturnal fox with unusually large, highly sensitive ears, that inhabits from African and Arab deserts areas from Western Sahara and Mauritania to the Sinai Peninsula. But has it ever been seen in a song?

Oct 22, 2025

Oct 9, 2025

Word of the week: gongoozler

Oct 9, 2025

Word of the week: A fabulous old English slang term for someone who tends to stand or sit for long periods staring at the passing of boats on canals, sometimes with a derogatory or at least ironic use for someone who is useless or lazy. But what of songs about this activity and culture?

Oct 9, 2025