For a band who claimed they were “All Done With Rock N Roll” as 2017 drew to a close, Watts continued to keep themselves busy. A digital single, ‘Queens’ followed in October 2018 and a new EP ‘Breaking Glass’ kicked off 2019 in their typically retro rock ‘n’ roll tradition.
It’s been a year since the world last heard from Boston’s underground heroes, but they’ve returned with a couple of new tracks that you can download on a “pay what you want” basis.
Ahead of their second album’s release, Norwegian indie/goth band Mayflower Madame are streaming their new single, ‘Vultures’.
Taking a pinch of Jesus & Mary Chain and a huge influence from Bauhaus and ‘First, Last & Always’ era Sisters of Mercy, the track really delivers in terms of mechanical rhythms, cold riffs and a brilliant alt-pop darkness. Everything has been recycled with so much love, it could even pass as authentic find from a vault of rare 80s alternative music.
Essex band Found Missing? released their debut EP in the summer of 2019. While the band were a relatively new arrival on the UK rock scene at that point, their members had been working the live circuit for some time as members of Cosmic Joker, Twelvepointhead and La Muerte.
La Muerte were fantastic. They left the world too prematurely with one EP that fused elements of punk, hardcore and a debt to early Killing Joke. If you’re approaching this band expecting more of the same you’re surely going to be disappointed, but what Found Missing? do, they often do very well. Opting for something very retro, the band takes a huge hard rock swagger, injects it with a love of funk and then dirties it up a little, ending up sounding like an early 90s funk metal band covering tracks from Bush’s US million seller ‘Sixteen Stone’. Obviously, at the time of release, it sounds rather…out of time, but for fans of that sort of thing, it very much fills a musical hole.
State Cows have been making excellent westcoast/yacht rock music since 2010. Always unashamed in their retro-ness, the band have delighted fans across the world with various self-penned homages to Toto, Steely Dan and late 70s Doobie Brothers. There’s nothing obviously original about the Cows’ choice of style, but there’s no denying they do it better than most…and even after so many years, the fact that this most American of sounds was perfected somewhere in Sweden is a fact that still amazes.
In October 2019, US dream pop duo Cathedral Bells gave fans a taste of their upcoming album when they released a new single ‘Ephemeral’. The track gave everyone everything they’d hoped for with a hazy throwback to 90s dreampop and shoegaze, all the while still showcasing the band’s gift for a vaguely gothy melody.