On their current single ‘Ease Up’, The Astronauts deliver an unashamed love letter to the early 90s. From the moment the main melody hits, the layers of sound tap into a heavy indie/shoegaze sound that’s unmistakeably retro. The tune is also massively appealing, but it’s likely to require three or four listens before this becomes really obvious.
With a new name being touted almost weekly, it seems as if Finland has more metal bands per square mile than anywhere else on the planet. That said, there’s always room for more, and today, Obscure Fate release their debut single ‘Age of Delusion’, a solid sounding number, bringing together elements of 80s melodic metal, light goth overtones and melodic death metal aspects.
Following a string of rather varied sounding digital singles – kicking off with ‘Spilled Milk’ in September 2024 – one man band Tooth Gore released his long awaited ‘For Losers…By Losers’ album in June 2025. It didn’t disappoint. Taking in elements of surf rock, noisy indie, melodic punk and a couple of other retro twists, the album showcased an artist will a brilliantly malleable talent.
Tipped as “one of Belfast’s fastest rising bands”, Franklin are definitely a band to watch out for over the coming months. Last year’s single ‘Bebby’ introduced a tight music unit with its combination of pumping basslines contrasted with overdriven, choppy guitar lines that captured the ghosts of The Skids and really early U2, crossed with the slightly more abrasive edges of early Franz Ferdinand. The blend of power and melody showcased an amazingly tight band on this track, but by throwing an old school lead guitar break into a pleasingly angular workout also advertised a band who might be unafraid to take a swerve into the unexpected. What’s more, a full live set from Bennigans in Derry (captured with a very professional multi camera set up) showed a band who were far more than studio based marvels.
Madness have been well served by compilation albums in the past. Their 1982 release ‘Complete Madness’ brought together a complete run of the band’s hits up to that point, making ‘House of Fun’ and the single version of ‘Return of The Las Palmas 7’ (with extra sax during the final section) available on a full length release for the first time, and also threw in a random b-side ‘In The City’ for good measure. The later ‘Divine Madness’ was a little more purist in its approach, but gave pride of place to the later hits ‘Michael Caine’, ‘The Sun & The Rain’, ‘Wings of A Dove’ and ‘One Better Day’, showing how much the Camden Nutty Boys had matured as musicians and songwriters in the short time since the release of ‘Complete Madness’ and the band’s split just a few years later.