Things have taken a surprisingly heavy turn in the Quality of Mercury camp. ‘The Voyager’ – the first single and title track from the band’s second album opens with a riff that, unexpectedly, blends the density of classic shoegaze with the dark edge of doom metal. This, as you would expect, sets about crushing the audience in a very direct manner.
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Listen: Vulgarithm unleashes ‘Another Lie’
Five months ago, Vulgarithm released their single ‘Welcome To The Forgotten Show’, an angry workout blending dance beats and spoken word verses with an absolutely blistering chorus where the artist clearly looked to ‘Filth Pig’ era Ministry for influence. The verses might not have struck a chord with the rock and metal audience immediately, but the riff on the chorus came with such a force it was hard to ignore. With a sharp edge and an absolutely classic industrial sound, the rockier elements of the track helped to form the one man band’s best track to date.
Watch: Keep This Up share new video for ‘Remedy (For The End)’
On a pair of singles issued in 2024, Keep This Up shared a strong blend of melodic post-hardcore with more than a hint of emo. On ‘Blossom’, in particular, the way the band fused speed driven angst with vocals that sounded if they were either on the verge of tears or exploding under the weight of pent up fury owed as much to the mid 00’s as the present.
Listen: Rich Allo shares new single ‘You’
In the summer of 2025, singer songwriter Rich Allo released ‘Sabre Teeth’, a strange single that blended styles in a most unexpected way. Its underlying acoustic guitar lines had a hint of influence from post grunge in their chord pattern, but drew more from anti-folk in the way the recording used a lo-fi mix and live sound to present itself. The live sound also allowed for the sound of fingers on frets to be audible, giving the core of the verse a genuine character. Rich then contrasted that with a huge vocal where falsetto sounds made for an unnatural match. However, given time to adjust, the track shared a melodic core that was huge, and the second half of the number – sharing more of a rock-centic voice and some very busy lead guitar work – played a little more towards tradition, all the while clinging onto something that didn’t immediately sound like anyone else.
Listen: The Peppermint Kicks deliver a ‘Number One Record’
In the middle of the “lockdown years”,The Peppermint Kicks released their debut album, a ten track collection of retro workouts, pretty much guaranteed to thrill fans of the musicians involved. Like many releases on the Rum Bar label, it received positive praise from the underground press, but didn’t really reach beyond “cult status”.