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5. Long May Brown Horse Reign

Although they hail from Norwich, Brown Horse’s music has often drawn comparison with a string of artists associated with the wide-screen vistas of the American-South. Perhaps that shouldn’t come as a surprise; the flatlands of Norfolk are, after all, about as close to big sky country as the rolling landscapes of the UK really get, so the stark twang of their debut Reservoir or the weary Americana of the follow-up All The Right Weaknesses make a lot of sense. Continuing a run of three albums in just three years, the band will return in April with their new record, Total Dive, a record they describe as a, “step forward into the darkness with a cautious optimism”. This week, they shared the second taster of the record in the shape of their new single, Sorrow Reigns.

The mood of Sorrow Reigns is set from the opening line, “in slow motion some violence unfolds”. There’s something cold about how every day they make it all sound, as if brutality is the norm, and they revisit it throughout, whether it’s the stranger who, “takes his life out on another man, just because he can”, or a building torn down, “the pipework was left dangling, all it’s insides, on the outside, it was pretty, like nothing’s pretty”. That intensity is matched in the musical backing, all Good Looks-like gutsy blue collar guitar chug and Horse Thief-like emotional outpourings. For all the darkness painted it’s not a song without humanity, like a green shoot through the concrete, a laugh shared with “a girl at the piercing place”, about a name shared with a skate park in her hometown, “it was pretty rough, she said it was pretty tough, but it’s got a really sick bowl if you’re good enough”. While Brown Horse have always been an intriguing prospect, now more than anything, they sound confident in who they are, the influences remain, of course, but they’re channelling them into something intriguingly their own.

Total Dive is out April 10th via Loose Music. For more information on Brown Horse visit https://brownhorsemusic.com/.

4. Bobbie’s Got Staying Power

A musician, and baker, from Western Massachusetts, bobbie has found increasing acclaim for both their 2023 debut album, Rhododendron, fittingly released via the Flower Sounds label, and a slew of self-released, home-recorded projects. Along the way, they caught the ear of Orindal Records head honcho Owen Ashworth, perhaps spotting some shared musical DNA in their, “twinkly ambient abstraction”. It’s through Orindal that bobbie will share their upcoming second album, Lessons, a self-produced record made in Brooklyn with engineer, and sometimes drummer, Felix Walworth. With the album set to arrive at the start of March, this week bobbie shared their new single, I Don’t Wanna Stay.

The closing track on Lessons, I Don’t Wanna Stay evolved from earlier lo-fi recordings, and finds bobbie exploring one of the album’s key themes, longing. A track bobbie suggests, “has a particular saudade”, it finds bobbie asking a series of questions, “are we ready for change? How do we hold our grief, disappointment, and nostalgia?” The song is a classic slow-burner; it enters on the processed tick of an Omnichord drum beat, gradually joined by textural guitars and bright autoharp glissandos. Out of the gloom, bobbie’s vocal enters, at first it’s a sort of downbeat spoken shrug, “I wanna go far, I wanna go where, I know no one” yet as the song progresses they seem to grow into the sense of the unknown, the vocal becoming brighter at the prospect of change, “do you want me, too? I’d leave it all behind”. While it’s a relatively minimal piece, I Don’t Wanna Stay is also surprisingly luxuriant, a place to get lost in the unspoken and the unknown, and for six minutes to escape the buzz and clamour of the world that, sometimes thankfully, only exists outside of your headphones.

Lessons is out March 6th via Orindal Records. For more information on bobbie visit https://bobbiemusic.world/.

3. Kevin Morby’s My Favourite Javelin Thrower Since Steve Backley

Across his enviable back catalogue, Kevin Morby has always been a songwriter enthralled with place, from the bustling cities to the dusty prairies, he’s covered almost as much of America in his songs as he has in decades of touring. If those records were distinctly rooted, his upcoming album Little Wide Open, is perhaps conversely a record that’s always moving, exploring the, “tangled highways” that come with being, “an American entertainer”. This sense of movement is particularly evident on the record’s first single Javelin, released into the world this week and a song Kevin describes as being, “about being in love with someone you keep circling around the globe”.

Throughout Javelin, there’s a sense of take-offs and landings that never coincide, from the opening return to an empty home, “I’m back in town, all by myself”, to setting off on yet another tour, “you know I have been travelling, through the air and down the highway, like a javelin”. Throughout all this movement, Kevin’s mind has room to wander and wonder, “towards this old cowtown in the Bible Belt, remember they asked us baby just how it felt to be alone just the two of us in middle America?” It’s all set to a track that’s classic Kevin Morby, the complex percussive patter serving to lift the propulsive guitars and the road worn croak of his unmistakable vocal. The progress here is in the details, whether it’s the rich swell of backing vocals, courtesy of Sylvan Esso’s Amelia Meath, that’s cleverly used to cut from verses to chorus, or the way Kevin steps out of focus in the closing section, as if he’s narrating his own song. While it’s not a track that reaches any grand conclusion on the future, throughout there’s a sense of both optimism and strain, at one point he pictures married bliss, “could this be our life babe, could you be my wife?” While at another he sees obstacles down the road for two people in different orbits, “I should go dancing, take my boots off the shelf, don’t be concerned babe, at least not yet”. Kevin Morby’s records have always been little mysteries, a songwriter who lets us in but only for a moment, photographs that never quite tell the whole story, with Little Wide Open though, there’s a sense of not hiding himself anymore. As he puts it, “this is, without a doubt, the most personal and vulnerable album I’ve ever made”, on this evidence, it might just be his best one as well.

Little Wide Open is out May 15th via Dead Oceans. For more information on Kevin Morby visit https://www.kevinmorby.com/.

2. Hitmen Aren’t Going Down The Drain

Back in 2024, London-based fuzz rockers Hitmen released their debut EP, Rock To Forget. While something of a departure from the general sound of the label, it caught the ear of Memorials Of Distinction, with Josh from the label admitting to being somewhat obsessed with it. Obsessed enough to agree to release their upcoming AA 7″ single, which the band announced this week, as well as sharing a string of tour dates, and sharing one of the two tracks from it, Three Drains.

Discussing Three Drains, frontman Karim Newble explains the title comes from, “some superstition I grew up with around walking on drain covers if they were grouped in threes”, a fitting title as he explains the tracks, “lyrical focus of the song surrounding bad habits we cling onto from youth”. While they’ve always been a band keen to make their roots in the hardcore underground known, on Three Drains, they lean a little more into their melodic side, a slacker-pop song dressed up in a delightfully scuzzy suite. The track was originally given the working title debadee, an onomatopoeic ode to the twiddly brilliance of the main guitar riff, it wouldn’t really have fit with the lyrical content though, as Karim explores past heartache and the tendency to get stuck in old routines, “I know you’re thinking the same things that make me blue, but they just ain’t workin’ the way I needed them to”. While their music might play big, bragadociouos and loud, scratch the surface of a Hitmen song and you’ll find someone just longing for the world to make more sense, “Imma go where the rent is due, I don’t know why I can’t get along with the rest of you”. It’s a potent juxtaposition of carefree and weighed down, and one that suggests the Hitmen might not stay underground for long.

Early Riser / Three Drains is out March 11th via Memorials Of Distinction. For more information on Hitmen visit https://linktr.ee/rocktoforget.

1. Special Friend’s Clipping Is A Real Grower

A French/American duo based in Paris, Special Friend first came to my attention with their 2021 debut, Ennemi Commun. Two years later, they returned with Wait Until The Flames Come Rushing In, their first record to be released outside of France courtesy of Skep Wax, and one which became something of an underground hit. All of which means their upcoming album, Clipping, arrives with a certain amount of expectation. Recorded over a, by their standards, lengthy seven days, “in an isolated rural environment conducive to immersion” at Studio Claudio, the record was a deliberate attempt to introduce greater care to the recording process and to see where a more developed sound could take them. With a lengthy UK tour preceding Clipping’s arrival next month, this week the band shared the latest taster of it, in the shape of the rather excellent title track.

While it’s a word of many different meanings, when Special Friend landed on Clipping, they were thinking of,”the discipline of pruning growth back, removing dead wood to create a perfectly shaped tree with abundant blossoms”. That sense of out with the old and in with the new is evident in the shifting landscapes of the title track. The verses gallop on a racing drumbeat and a twiddle of guitar, a winning blend of Galaxie 500 and Yo La Tengo, before the chorus explodes into a blast of shoegazey goodness. They even find room in a three minute pop-song to throw in an acoustic breakdown, like someone slammed on the brakes just in time to glimpse the most beautiful view you’ve ever seen. As the song drifts out on a sea of echo-drenched harmonies, fuzzed out guitars and even reverberating piano chords, it’s clear that Special Friend’s horizons have expanded and their potential has hit a new and perhaps limitless peak.

Clipping is out March 20th via Skep Wax / Howlin’ Banana / Hidden Bay. For more information on Special Friend visit https://specialfriend.bandcamp.com/.

Header photo is Special Friend by Jules Vandales