As we head even further into a new year, submissions for the ever popular Real Gone Singles Bar continue to be very interesting. This time around. We’ve got a perfect homage to those 90s classics from the 4AD label, the return of a great retro goth band, some British skacore, and even a lo-fi oddity that proves surprisingly effective. With a couple of rocky tracks along the way and some well played Americana, we hope most people will find something new to enjoy.
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With the ongoing promotion of their ‘Beautiful Mysterious’ album, several successful live dates and a massive upturn in their online following, cult dreamgaze band KEELEY – fronted by the charismatic Keeley Moss – had a hugely successful 2025.
The beginning of 2026 will see the band going back on the road, this time to promote yet another new album, ‘Girl On The Edge of The World’. The ever-prolific Moss claims it is the first one that truly “captures the sonic swirl of [the band’s] sound, which suggests it’ll be a genuine treat for those who’ve already enjoyed ‘Floating Above Everything Else’ (2023) and the following year’s ‘Beautiful Mysterious’.
Welcome back to the Real Gone Singles Bar, the place where we explore some of the more interesting tracks that have been submitted over the previous few weeks. This time around, there’s some perfect dream pop/indie sounds, a huge stoner friendly piece of deep psych with a heavy edge, some AOR, a superb track with a jazz influenced vocal…and more besides. As always, we hope you find something new to enjoy!
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Montreal’s Museums arrived on the shoegaze scene in 2024 with ‘Sink Your Teeth In My Brain’, a two track digital release that captured a wealth of heavily treated guitar sounds and swirling atmospheres rather effectively. Coupled with a strong sense of indie-centric melodies and a clean, almost dream pop-esque vocal, the material was accessible for the style; the production values showed some obvious budgetary limitations, but the band’s bright and breezy style marked them out as an act to keep an ear for in future. Subsequent singles ‘Ur Best’ and ‘In Waves’ continued the streak of great retro sounds. With its fusion of indie and bubblegum pop, and incessant hook – sort of like a collaboration between Velocity Girl and Rilo Kiley – the latter more than suggested that Museums could be capable of delivering something much bigger in time.
Rayon’s ‘Colour’ album – released in October 2022 – presented twelve tracks of pleasingly angular indie/post rock throughout a vinyl friendly forty minutes. Although there were times when main man Eric Sabatino’s work couldn’t claim to be one hundred percent original, the best bits of that long player were hugely entertaining. The highlights really showed off a band who could work a great riff: ‘Canada’ attacked with a harsh guitar sound coupled with a funky bassline, sounding like a deep cut from XTC’s ‘Drums & Wires’ before introducing a faintly psychedelic vocal; ‘Come Along’ mixed classic indie rock riffs with a finely tuned sinister edge, occasionally sounding like Robyn Hitchcock fronting the early 80s Cure, and ‘Blue Nights’ applied a fierce jangle and contrasted that with a vocal that was far more attuned with a dream pop sound, creating something surprisingly effective.