Welcome back to the Real Gone Singles Bar, the place where we explore some of the individual tracks that have landed in our inbox over the past couple of weeks. This time around, we bring you a superb pop-rocker from a Scottish act, a massive slab of dub from a legendary figure, a pair of very different punkers, something folky, and a throwback to industrial’s 90s peak. As always, we hope you find something new to enjoy!
*
At the beginning of 2025, Hike The Peak – an ongoing, collaborative punk project helmed by Sheffield based musician Lee Byatt – released ‘Fire’, a two track offering that, musically, fell between the tougher end of Sum 41’s work and the more melodic elements of Strike Anywhere. Members of Aussie punk band Fake News and US punks Gametime proved to be useful musical allies, and although there were elements of the short listen that already felt familiar from a fan’s point of view, it more than suggested that Byatt would deliver even more great music going forward.
A new band for 2025, Austin’s Cheap Fix deliver two slabs of raw garage punk on their debut 7”. Whilst neither track attempts to break any new ground, genre wise, it’s actually clear within seconds of hitting the play button that these Texan lads mean business, and this first taste of their hard and fast sound suggests they are capable of going head to head with some of the scene’s best noise makers.
With members hailing from Norway and Scotland, amilost are a duo with a truly international flavour. Vocalist Sigrid Zeiner’s vocal style taps into a very melodic vein of Scandinavian singer songwriter fare, somewhere on the fringes of adult pop – something which dominated their breakthrough single ‘Pillowside’ in 2022. Multi instrumentalist Ross Craib isn’t shy of allowing his geographical roots to show, sometimes strongly, adding a traditional folk/Celtic melody to a sound that’s been dubbed having a “sense of cinematic grandeur”. On amilost’s ‘Good Morning’ single from 2023, Sigrid’s strong vocal was augmented by a choir of smooth voices that offered more than a strong callback to classic Clannad. This gave amilost a very easy vibe, but this certainly helped to bring out the very best in their very adult oriented sound.
When a band opens their album with a track that clocks in at nearly half an hour, you know they aren’t messing around. When it happens to be the first release by an unfamiliar name, you have to wonder if the musicians involved aren’t contemplating career suicide. That said, ‘Chromosphere’ – the huge sound collage that opens the debut album from sonic experimentalists Droni Eye Omi – is absolutely superb.