Band: KEG Who:7 unbridled English indies, Brighton via London, toe a fine line
between the angular throb of contemporary post-rock sensibilities
and a timeless necessity for harmony and meticulous songwriting.
It’s described as a break-up album. KEG turn towards themes of separation,
regret and personal reckoning. Across its sprawling mix of post-punk, prog,
jazz, hardcore and psychedelia, the record finds the band expanding their
sound in broader sonic directions, while retaining the mischief that has
defined them since their formation.
With the news comes the lead single, named CALL ME SATAN
Albert Haddenham (frontman/songwriter): “The lyrics follow a possible trajectory
of someone I didn’t want to turn into. I conjured up a horrible little thought exercise
and imagined how all the traits I didn’t enjoy about myself would eventually turn out
if I followed them to the extremes. It’s mainly about trying to accept your foibles and
accepting responsibility for your actions.”
Lyrically, the track sees the band address the “rampant cronyism that permeates
through Irish arts funding and indeed public funding in Irish society generally.”
TUTV: Anger. Rage. Discontent. Attack! Attack! Slyrydes spit and sneer fiercely about
the Irish government’s unscrupulous arts and public funding politics. This left-right
punk uppercut cries out against injustice and corruption. Gatekeepers resonates like
a vociferous, verbal riot-gun detonation.
No rest for the wicked, the greedy and the corrupt. Alert your neighbours beforehand
you press play, and you start to crash with your head on repeat into your kitchen wall
to this badass shit.
“Lux Interior in vinyl pants with three-inch pumps, breaking mic stands, drinking wine, and breaking bottles. Meanwhile such a strong female personality in Poison Ivy, a woman who never smiled but was such a badass. For me, The Cramps are one of the greatest bands of all time.”
NME: “Pop meets politics on their most adventurous record yet. It refracts the dystopian state of modern America through the prism of their lightest, poppiest record to date. The band lean into hooks and melody more than ever before.”
TUTV: The whispery vocal tonality founder/main songwriter/guitarist Zachary Cole Smith, aligns completely with the soft tone of Jason Lylte, the frontman of electro dream-pop collective Grandaddy. They easily could switch bands without confusing your ears.
I want to add that I’m a Grandaddy fan but not a DIVV one. The Brooklyn beatniks’
multi-guitar-layered shoegaze vigor differs from Grandaddy’s magnetic, melancholic attractiveness that captivates me.
Due to DIVV’s overall monotone euphoniousness, I’m not charmed by Zirp! Except for The Crash, Trillions, and Us Against You, notable for their more-than-average vivid verve,
Unlike their numerous admirers. I will not return to this album, unlike their many admirers.
It went to No. 1 in the UK, Ireland and Canada, No. 2 in Australia, No. 3 in the US.
Stewart Copeland: “I remember saying, ‘Okay put up Sting’s original demo and I’ll show you how crummy it is.’ So Sting stood over me and waved me through all the changes. I did just one take, and that became the record. Then Andy did the same thing on the guitar. We just faced the music, bit the bullet, and used Sting’s arrangements and demo. Damn.”
Sting:“I had to fight hard to put that song on the record. I convinced them and eventually Stewart played fantastically on the demo. It took a lot of work but I knew he could do it. He’s
a fantastic drummer.”
Co-songwriter Bernie Taupin said: “It’s a pretty simple idea, but one that I think everyone can relate to at one point or another in their life. That whole idealistic feeling people get when they want to save something from dying when they basically know deep down inside that it’s already dead.
It’s that heartbreaking, sickening part of love that you wouldn’t wish on anyone
if you didn’t know that it’s inevitable that they’re going to experience it one day.”
It peaked at #6 in the US, #11 in the UK, and #3 in Canada.
English hot shot rocker FRANK TURNER and his band Sleeping Souls will be busy on the road next year.
His latest full-length, his 10th, named Undefeated, dates from 2024.
Last June, he came up with a reworked version of the album’s single Do One featuring Montreal-based artist Guilhem.
The tour is billed ‘Last Evenings’; no idea what that means; No First Evenings?
Who: Feverish Belgian 4-piece outfit built around impassioned
singer/songwriter/guitarist Ilayda Cicek. Their music is driven
by contrast: restraint against impact, melody against noise,
control against collapse.
I recall first encountering Ilayda, approximately ten years ago, alone with
an acoustic guitar, on a tiny stage. She looked shy and vulnerable, but her
set of intimate reveries and her soul-stirring voice touched my ears. Her
vocal tone, wholehearted timbre, and wide range caused goosebumps.
A few years later, she returned with a full rock band behind her; the decibel levels
went up, and their splendid 7-track mini albumFelt captured the attention of both
new fans and the media.
It featured her supreme slam dunk Leave Me Dry, still my standout favorite.
The EP was followed in 2024 by the formidable debut full-length Ayna.
Back to the present now. Early last month, the band’s
2nd LP, titled Motherland, landed on our earphones.
The record is a deeply personal one and weaves together Ilayda‘s Turkish
family roots, imagery of Turkish nature, and memories of her father, who
emigrated from Turkey to Belgium in the late 1980s.
Ilayda: “This album was born from the idea that we, as people, live with missing
pieces. Fragments of ourselves are left behind in places, people, and dreams.”
The melodically structured songs have a firm and feverish, resounding intensity, invigorated with Ilayda‘s expressive voice and amplified by her turbo sidekicks. Motherland will be here for a long time and has already drawn positive, critical
coverage from outside of Belgium.
Louder Than War (UK webzine) says: “It’s a record shaped by questions of heritage, distance and the pieces of ourselves that remain elsewhere, even as we move forward. In finding beauty within that sense of incompleteness, ILA have created an assured and emotionally resonant second album that expands their sound without losing the rawness and immediacy that made them compelling in the first place.”
You can stream the album below.
Last Friday the band had a try-out gig in Tielt (Belgium), for their upcoming
first European club tour. It had been more than a year since I saw them on
stage.
No glitches, no false starts, no hesitation. Full blast ahead with confidence and determination, although Ilayda confessed to being a bit nervous playing some of
the new songs that were integrated seamlessly into the setlist. They’re ready to go.
ILA’s new chapter, on record and on stage, has
officially started. It’s gonna be a wild ride.
Grian Chatten (frontman/songwriter) who spent time among the faded grandeur
of Venice, Vienna and Sicily in search of lyrical inspiration: “I think Romance was maybe
60 per cent human and 40 per cent corrupted by automation, and a loss of feeling.
This one feels more like 60 per cent corrupted — the mask is wearing the face a little
more. I felt it would be more powerful to leave the hope out and reflect the ugliness
honestly. This one needed to feel more like a catastrophic warning.”
TUTV: Their first 2 LPs were afire ones, the ones young gunslingers make, full of vim
and vigour and stuffed with muscular barnstormers. With their third album Skinty Fia
the growing-up Irishmen showed signs of change of course, sonically and lyrically.
The 4th full-lengthRomance confirmed their new direction completely
and now with Dopamine Chamber they created/crafted a masterpiece.
A strings sweeping, orchestral, gloom/doom triumph. More cinematic, designed synth arrangements, less youthful guitar upheaval, more in-depth reflections about what worried Chatten sees and hears around him in this dark era.
His ruminative tonality and affecting storytelling timbre are on his most entrancing
button. This sign of the times exploit will spin on my headphones for a long time. One
of the most fulfilling records of 2026.
Press info:Fat Dog have created an exhilarating, swaggering, panoramic, inventive,
re-inventive, re-re-inventive electro-punk-art-pop-rock’n’roll-space-country triumph that deserves all the adjectives. Over ten mind-bending and melodic tracks, it blends electro-pop anthems, cascading rave bangers, cowboy-tinged pitstops and swirling psychedelia.
TUTV: Fat Dog are barking at the same tree. They use their prize-winning formula
of their debut again, and it works fabulously piquing. Electro-punk pyrotechnics accompanied by boosting bass riffage, drubbing drum beats, crescendo-going vitality,
and Joe Love‘s pressurizing vocals combine for another tiring 24-hour party where you
can chase your tail all night long.
It would be a major blunder to cancel them.
Never modify a victorious dog team.
Let’s go to the races with FD.
Artist: JOHNNY MARR Who: The former The Smiths‘ guitar hero, who played afterward
several years with Modest Mouse, also with The Pretenders, Brian
Ferry and many more.
Marr: “This is the record that’s been the most cathartic. The title came to me early in the process and became an inescapable idea. It seemed to sum up the way I think a lot of people are feeling. It’s all encompassing, but it’s not necessarily a negative statement. There’s a sense
of overwhelm in the culture brought about by technology, but looking at it with a different light, there could also be a sense of possibility.”
TUTV: Arguably his best solo effort. A series of top-drawer tunes, action-packed
guitar riffs and sparkling hooks, as usual, with vocal striving. This charming man
made a notably arresting record, up there with The Smiths‘ better work.
Press info: While rooted in synthpop, THING constantly drifts into darker territory, pulling in elements of post-punk, darkwave, industrial and EBM. It’s an album shaped by two very different musical personalities: one drawn to urgency, noise and momentum, the other to restraint, atmosphere and reflection. Somewhere between those poles, WHOLE found its most direct and cohesive work yet.
Lyrically, the record revolves around a simple but increasingly relevant question:
what makes a human being human? In an age of algorithms, profiles, AI and endless
self-optimization, where exactly is the line between a person and a thing?
TUTV: Overall, Thing sounds like wandering aimlessly in a puzzling labyrinth.
Many ways to walk, many ways to lose yourself, only one way to freedom. WHOLE are looking for answers in this world’s growing AI spider web. Who or what are we, really?
The duo shifts from industrial textures to darkwave dynamics, from gloomy goth to doomy
post-punk percussion, from Die Krupps to Bauhaus, from Nosferatu to Lebanon Hangover. Participate in their sonic odyssey; it’s a worthwhile adventure.
Band: KIDS WITH BUNS Who: Belgian dream pop duo, featuring Marie Van Uytvanck and Amber Piddington.
“We started out with Kids With Buns at age 18 and 20 respectively, and we were
not trained musicians by any means. To be able to put that complete puzzle together.
The arrangement, the songs, the production everything contributes to the whole of
a song.
We have had the privilege of learning it by doing it, from the bedroom to the stage. And we see the potential in each other’s ideas where no one else would.”
Album: BELL JAR
Their 3rd. Recorded in Philadelphia.
The album title is a direct reference to the famous semi-autobiographical
novel by American author Sylvia Plath (1932-1963).
KWB: “The theme of The Bell Jar is how every process in your life is actually circular,
regarding the healing from mental health issues. When things get better, they will also
get worse, and at some point, that becomes a very present theme in our lives. We felt
that we kept falling into certain patterns.”
Pukkelpop Festival, 22 August 26, photo by Turn Up The Volume
TUTV: Once again, we can hear/experience how heartfelt music can generate
a healing force after a break-up and hurting lovesickness. These two wonderful
buns also channel their crestfallen feelings through their singer-songwriters skills
in the hope of a cathartic recovery.
Marie and Amber enchant with guitar-sparkled musings, with warm vocals and
breezy harmonies. Dream-pop tranquillity with a rehabilitating outcome. Enlivening
tunes and ambivalent lullabies alternate throughout this falling down, standing up
record. Bittersweet symphonies for twilight moments.
