Welcome back to the Real Gone Singles Bar, the place where we explore some of the individual tracks that have been sent our way over the past few weeks. This selection is another genuinely mixed bag, sharing – amongst other things – a country track, a dance number, a perfect homage to 90s shoegaze, and a tune from an up and coming rock band featuring a huge vocal. As always, we hope you find something new to enjoy.
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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.
Max Rael’s debut single ‘Brighter Future’ pushed the alternative envelope by applying spoken word passages to bleak sounding synth backdrops, creating an almost dystopian musical landscape. The number’s darker side was effectively offset by the History of Guns man offering listeners a positive lyric, where he suggested we can look to the past and learn from mistakes to forge a brighter future. Issued at a time when the world seemed incredibly negative with seemingly little escape from a political turmoil, Rael’s optimism – no matter how obtusely applied – offered fans of less mainstream music a small beacon of hope.
From the release of their 2011 EP through to 2022’s ‘Voodoo’, Kill Your Boyfriend have steadily crafted an impressive mix of post punk and heavy electronica sounds. Over the course of more than a decade, they’ve remained true to themselves, never really sought commercial acceptance, or softened their sound. On 2025’s ‘Disco Kills’, there are a couple of interesting musical deviations, but the bulk of their material remains incredibly harsh.
This visit to the Singles Bar ends with some of our noisier picks from recent times, taking in a love letter to 90s grunge, a crushing metallic riff with alternative leanings and even a slab of old school thrash, but that’s not to say we’ve overlooked other musical interests. With a disco/electronica infused workout, a quirky track from an up and coming Irish singer-songwriter and some pure pop from a now familiar voice, the usual musical detours that have helped our weekly column retain interest are still very much present. As always, we hope you find something new to enjoy…
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