After over 600 gigs, London based brother-and-sister duo The Molotovs have finally released their debut album. It’s fair to say that for a band so aligned with punk, Wasted On Youth is much more of a hark back to Britpop and 2010s indie rock, but despite a slight lack of self-awareness, it is studded with promise.Indie cursive singing is a bold move, and one that has attracted a lot of attention on social media in recent years by millennials cringing at their youth. There’s an extremely thin line between The Kooks asking the ironically iconic "do you want to go to the seaside?" and Arctic Read more ...

The term “post-punk” is much overused to describe music, not least by we music writers. It usually covers anything with punk’s outsider attitude but boasting an arty, tricky musical ambition beyond 1977’s spit’n’roar. Not all music described thus sounds as if it might have bothered the indie charts between 1978 and 1984, but Dry Cleaning do. Their third album’s bubbling combination of musical scratchiness and impassively delivered spoken word is pure post-punk. It’s also an intriguing and likeable listen.The rhythm throughout is a groovy plod, guitars wilfully relishing atonal skronk, coming Read more ...

In recent years, Sleaford Mods have moved on somewhat from sounding like an insistent and angry drunk yelling over a cheap Casio keyboard. Fortunately, not too much, though.Andrew Fearn and Jason Williamson’s potty-mouthed, minimalist punk-funk is still one of the sharper musical commentaries of the UK’s seeming demise and their style fits the subject matter like a glove. Angry, harsh and taking absolutely no prisoners. Sleaford Mods are the perfect soundtrack to a country that over-estimates its worth, while blithely strutting towards the edge of a steep cliff. As John Peel used to say about Read more ...

The stylish gentlemen pictured above are Crimson Earth, a band active from 1970 to 1976. Regardless of their longevity, the Dorset-based outfit failed to attract national attention and didn’t release any records. There was an audition for EMI, local media support and a deal with a Bristol booking agency but cigars were not forthcoming.Even so, a 1972 tape of the band has been disinterred and one track from it – the explosive, irresistible “Heathen Woman” – was included earlier this year on the agenda-setting Yeah Man, It's Bloody Heavy!!, an extraordinary, wild-ride compilation of never- Read more ...

VINYL OF THE MONTHManduria Bite Me (Wild Honey) Image The debut from Milan punkers Manduria is a six-tracker haemorrhaging rock’n’roll cheek and sass. They riff and fuzz and bang about without a care in the world, shouting and revelling in reverb mess, howling like Screamin’ Jay Hawkins while cranking up the amps like The Cramps, the rhythm section indulging in a mono-stomp that penetrates the inner brain like Joe Pesci’s vice. There’s a track called “I Hate to Think” and you don’t need to. On “Buongiorno” they slow things down for a dip Read more ...

Yes, I know. Maybe everything bitched about them is true; an eye-watering marketing push, cynically calculated, monied, etc. Maybe it is not. I’ve no real idea.But, but, but, the second album by this London five-piece is my most listened-to of 2025 – and it only came out in October. In the end, all that will be left is the music, the rest history. Just think of The Monkees. The cool kids loathed this manufactured TV group in the 1960s, but who listens to “Daydream Believer” today and froths with the same indignation?From the Pyre is a gem, start-to-finish, a perfect balance of Sparks-like pop Read more ...

When Yard Act headlined the O2 Academy in Glasgow back in 2023, they might have thought returning there as a support act would indicate a career that had taken a wrong turn. That’s where they found themselves on this jaunt with the Hives, though the reality was less a reflection of their status as a band and simply that what was announced as an arena tour for the Swedish garage rockers had been downgraded to a more modest setting. Not that the Leeds quartet seemed affected by it. Singer James Smith was typically verbose as ever, praising his band, their music and Glasgow itself before Read more ...

Witch Fever are a rising four-piece, originally formed in Manchester. Their debut album, 2022’s Congregation, was a raw, sludge-punk howl that represented singer Amy Walpole’s livid rejection of the stridently patriarchal Charismatic Church of her upbringing.Since then, they’ve toured with everyone from Biffy Clyro to IDLES, and gathered a righteous amount of attention (and, of course, they look great). Their second album is less laser-focused on religious subject matter. It’s a match for its predecessor but with greater use of atmospheric effects and electronic trimmings.Opener “Dead to Me Read more ...

Pop Will Eat Itself deserve to be more celebrated. The Stourbridge outfit were one of the first 1980s bands to realise the potential of smashing punky indie-rockin’ into hip hop and electronic dance.They had hits, many great songs, and covered the same territory that later gave The Prodigy mega-success (Delete Everything contains a rackety reimagining of the two groups' 1994 collaboration, "Their Law"). Unfortunately, a combination of their major label stabbing them in the back, and being perceived by some critics as cartoonishly adolescent, faded them out in the mid-Nineties. But they Read more ...

VINYL OF THE MONTHBlack Lips Season of the Peach (Fire)Some of the many releases by don’t-give-a-damn southern US rockers Black Lips are of variable quality. They’re actual rockers, not Modern Music BA university graduates, so it depends where their wild heads are at. Their latest is a good one. Their garage instincts are intact, but they also render loose-limbed, fibrous versions of country music, southern soul and indie guitar pop. There aren’t many bands who could write a song with a chorus that runs, “I just want a prick of my own”, and make it a catchy new wave singalong akin to the best Read more ...

Chiswick Records 1975-1982 - Seven Years at 45 RPM is a triple album marking the 50th anniversary of the first release on the titular label. That record was a four-track, seven-inch EP by the rough, Rolling Stones-ish pub rockers The Count Bishops. It came out in November 1975.Setting the trend for what was around the corner with punk, not only was The Count Bishops EP on an independent label it also came in a picture sleeve. The label was an outgrowth of the Rock On record stall and shop. The folks behind the imprint – Roger Armstrong, Ted Carroll and Trevor Churchill – all had backgrounds Read more ...

Gibby Haynes is the wild-eyed crazy man who used to front the Butthole Surfers back in the 1980s and 1990s. At the time, there was none weirder or more out there than the Texan psychedelic punks – and even Ice-T was then prepared to step back and acknowledge their place in the pantheon of musical barbarians.Despite a recent avalanche of album re-issues, a new live disc and a forthcoming documentary film, the Butthole Surfers effectively came to an end 25 years ago. However, not being one to settle down and integrate into mainstream society, Haynes is presently back on the road with a group of Read more ...