It’s a few days away from the Summer Solstice, and thankfully, after days of torrential rain, the sun appears high in the sky over Dreamland, despite it being rather late in the day. Du Blonde has not long finished a rather sprited but ragged set, and Skunk Anansie have arrived on stage at the huge outdoor venue.
‘Insanity’, the new single from Scottish rock band Kelowna, opens with an absolutely killer riff. Adopting earthy tones with an almost stoner-like sound, the guitars launch into something very bluesy, but also latching onto a genuine crunch which should appeal to a hard rock loving audience.
This visit to the Singles Bar takes in various moods, highlighting a varied selection of submissions over the past two weeks. We have an absolutely superb track capturing a perfect indie/dream pop sound, some amazing folk rock, a sidestep into soul-pop, a nod to 90s slackerdom, and a great piece of contemporary alternative metal. There are also tracks from the world of power pop and retro shoegaze, so there’s a little of everything that we feel keeps the SB – and Real Gone as a whole – constantly interesting. We hope, as always, you find something new to enjoy.
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Back in 2007, singer songwriter Eugene McGuinness released ‘The Early Learnings of…’, an album that explored moody retro pop with a spooky undertone (‘Vampire Casino’), numbers centred around a hard strummed guitar and slightly distorted vocal (‘A Child Lost In Tesco’, ‘Monsters Under The Bed’), and even lo-fi works that sounded like the ghost of Brian Wilson colouring Tindersticks balladry (‘Madeleine’). His scattershot approach resulted in an album that presented a very interesting voice in the world of adult pop.
Lowsunday made a long overdue return with their ‘Ghost Machine – White’ EP in 2025, putting an end to approximately a quarter of a century’s radio silence. Keen to capitalise on the momentum that was quickly built off the back of that release, it would only take six months for a follow up to appear.