Further Listening – HERE

5. Don’t Lose Your Head – Listen To Kindsight

The first non-Swedish band to sign to the ever-brilliant Rama Lama Records, Copenhagen-based indie-popsters Kindsight have been appearing on these pages regularly ever since I stumbled across their debut single, Who Are You back in 2020. Their debut album, Swedish Punks, breezed tunefully into my albums of the year in 2022, and the 2024 follow-up, No Shame No Fame, was just as great. It’s been a long wait to hear where they’re headed next, one that thankfully ended this week with the release of their new single, The Head (This Body Deserves).

A song that was originally “the band’s long and chaotic live show closer”, the recorded version of The Head (This Body Deserves) is conversely concise, a classic three-minute pop song in sound, if perhaps not in lyrical inspiration. Discussing the meaning behind the track, Kindsight suggest it, “deals with mathematics and “the head that pilots the body,” while also telling the story of a prophetic dream where Marlon Brando is reborn as the last son of Ursula von der Leyen”. It’s perhaps a more complicated jumping-off point than the lyrics suggest, as Nina Hyldgaard Rasmussen seems to touch on ideas of repressed longing and engulfing grief atop a backing that’s a potent mix of breezy drum clatter and wavering, wonky synths. While it doesn’t stray far from the blueprint outlined by their previous releases, there’s a sense of refinement here, nothing wasted, just brilliant pop music from a band deserving of a much bigger audience hearing just how good they are.

The Head (This Body Deserves) is out now via Rama Lama Records. For more information on Kindsight visit https://linktr.ee/kindsight.kindsight

4. Styrofoam Winos Are Your New Best Friends

Formed a decade ago, Styrofoam Winos were formed by three employees of JJ’s Market and Cafe bonded over a, “mutual adoration for Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, Leonard Cohen, and dollar bin country records”. Since then, the instrument swapping trio have gone on to release two albums of their own material, as well as a record of Michael Hurley covers. Their upcoming album, Any River, the follow-up to 2024’s Real Gone, is out mid-June via Dear Life Records, and this week they shared the latest single from it, New Friend.

Although the earliest version of the song was about, “going to get Ice Cream”, as Trevor Nikrant explains, it slowly morphed into something else, becoming a study of, “a character who wants to trust strangers and is cartoonishly naïve for the world”. Musically, the track seems to walk a similar path to the brilliant Frog, taking a classic Bossa Nova croon and re-imagining it with a playful wink for a modern audience. The luxurious shuffle of drums and flourishing piano is accompanied by a delightfully low-key vocal, as the lyrics come across like a daydream of simple pleasures. Throughout the images are delightfully skewed, from the opening childhood/adulthood contradiction, “there I go again, making grocery lists with a fountain pen and swinging on the swing“, through to Friday evening lip-licking anticipation, “it sure will be nice, when we get done for the night, and we can go get a pint”. There’s so much to love here, so many nuances to unpick and tricks to discover. Listening to Styrofoam Winos is like the first run through of a new board game; there’s fun to be had right now, sure, but the real treat comes with spending the time to slowly make sense of every subtle, playful detail. Invest the hours in Styrofoam Winos, and you won’t be disappointed.

Any River is out June 19th via Dear Life Records. For more information on Styrofoam Winos visit https://linktr.ee/styrofoamwinos

3. I’ve Got A Bad Feeling About Ultra Lights

Hailing from Atlanta, Georgia, Ultra Lights are a four-piece band led by the songwriting of John Robinson, previously of Illegal Drugs and Turf War. John started demoing tracks for the project back in the strange time of 2020, before bringing his bandmates on board in 2023. Things took a step up last year with a series of singles culminating in the band’s well-received, self-titled EP. This week, Ultra Lights announced details of their debut album, Pleasure’s All Yours, out in July via Chunklet, as well as sharing the first single from it, Bad Feeling.

If you’re a fan of first impressions, then Bad Feeling is the song for you! A see-sawing guitar creaks into gear, before an instant explosion of The Strokes-like drum clattering and noisy guitar crunch accompanies John as he sings, surely one of the year’s best opening lines, “well it’s a pretty nice day for a kick in the face, and if you like it so much, you should take my place”. The song doesn’t really let up from there, all Parquet Courts like indie-swagger with a touch of that junkyard dissonance that runs through the back catalogue of The Walkmen, or the criminally underrated Juan De Fuca. In music, we can spend too long looking for something new, forgetting that sometimes you just need someone to shine their own subtle light on something timeless. Ultra Lights do that better than anyone; they take the familiar and give it a much-needed shot in the arm. If all of their debut album is this thrilling, the pleasure will indeed be all ours.

Pleasure’s All Yours is out July 10th via Chunklet. For more information on Ultra Lights visit https://www.ultralightsband.com/

2. Forget U2, Arab Strap Are Going You x 3

2026 was already shaping up to be a momentous one for Arab Strap, as the duo celebrate an improbable thirty years of releasing music together (all be it with a 15-year gap in the middle). To mark the occasion, the band decided, “to celebrate by doing what we enjoy most: making new music”. The result will be their upcoming ninth album, Half Told Tales, which will arrive in September via Rock Action Records. Ahead of the release, the band shared the hopeful/hopeless balancing new single, You You You.

While being a song very much in the image of the world it’s arriving into, You You You is perhaps not as downcast as it sometimes suggests. As Aidan Moffat explains, the song is, “an attempt to remind ourselves, and hopefully others, that the world’s not full of awful people”. While lots of us are dealing with the same worries and moral complexities, be it, “the rising costs of absolutely everything” or, “playing an unwitting part in the military-industrial complex, and the endless warping of reality”, there is something to be said for feeling we’re not alone in that, “it was designed as a kind of invocation, To bring forth the stubbornly elusive spirits of hope and solidarity”. Musically, the track is an intriguing fusion of sound, “a sort of disco-metal incantation” as they put it, as the sounds of a night out in Ibiza collide with the industrial crunch of the guitar, and Aidan’s unmistakably gruff vocal stylings. In between skewering Spotify and the UK government’s terrorism laws, Aidan keeps coming back to something simpler, a human connection, “with a rose in my fist, and a song in my lungs, I reach for a hand, and I’ve got you, you, you”. Three decades in and Falkirk’s finest remain as engaged and engaging as ever; if this is a sign of where their Half Told Tales are going to take us, then bring on the next thirty years.

Half Told Tales is out September 4th via Rock Action Records. For more information on Arab Strap visit https://www.arabstrap.scot/

1. Tugboat Captain Join The Space Race

Having released one of 2025’s finest records, Tugboat Captain took to the road, toured it extensively, and promptly decided to retire from playing live. Fans of the band’s recorded work could have been forgiven for wondering what that meant for their future, but the band have wasted no time in casting off any doubts. Recorded practically straight off the tour bus, the band’s upcoming fifth album, All At Once, was written and recorded in just two weeks and has been described by the band as, “a sonic pivot”, from what came before. With the album set to land in the middle of July, this week Tugboat Captain shared the first single from it, Us & The Moon.

From the opening flourish of moody Rhodes-like piano, it’s pretty clear that Tugboat Captain have made a distinct shift in direction, the collective expressive howl of their previous record Dog Tale replaced by something more inward and intimate. Lyrically, the song finds frontman Sox taking the listener, “through a contemplative night-time meander of South London”, as he contemplates the bravery in opening yourself up, “take care, and it takes two, I think I’m scared, just us and the moon”. While the lyrical shift is evident, it’s perhaps in the music that the real revelation comes, as Sofia Bartlett’s textural violin work and the push-pull of the rhythm section accompany the ever-shifting synth palette, bringing to mind the likes of Broken Social Scene or the heart-wrenching intimacy of First Days Of Spring-era Noah & The Whale. By committing themselves to the process of making records, Tugboat Captain seem to have unlocked a new vein of creativity, this is music no longer made with the stage in mind, that has the freedom to flourish in thrilling new ways. It’s no surprise really, Tugboats have always been most useful sailing close to shore.

All At Once is out July 17th. For more information on Tugboat Captain visit https://linktr.ee/tugboatcaptain.

Header photo is Tugboat Captain.