A new F.O. Machete single is here and I’m buzzing. My own route into the Glasgow duo opened with Mother of a Thousand, their 2025 return after a lengthy time apart, and I was more than happy to follow them into ‘I’m Fine, Are You?’ when that next single appeared. That song suggested Natasha Noramly and Paul Mellon had returned with a fine album under their arms and a freshly sharpened appetite to keep moving. ‘Sleeper Cell’ only confirms my suspicions. This is a band enjoying its new chapter, and you can hear the pleasure in every turn.
For those just jumping into F.O. Machete, they have quite the back story. Noramly and Mellon formed the band in Glasgow in April 2003, releasing My First Machete before following it with Blaze of Flashes. A run of releases, headline shows and support slots with Dinosaur Jr. and TV On The Radio established them as a distinctive presence in UK indie music before the band paused in 2011. Noramly headed to Los Angeles and joined Bedtime for Toys, with Mellon going on to tour with Red Light Company and work with Human Don’t Be Angry and Bdy_Prts. Their reunion in 2023 led to Mother of a Thousand, and for those of us who entered the story at that point, it felt like finding a band fully alert to the joy of making a racket together again.
From its first moments, ‘Sleeper Cell’ is driven by Paul Mellon’s guitar, a riff with enough grit to catch on your sleeve and enough swing to set your shoulders moving. There is a gallus strut in the way the song holds itself, alongside the worn in looseness that has always made this pair so appealing. It feels lean and immediate, with the guitar doing exactly what a great single needs it to do! Natasha Noramly gives the track its cool centre. Her vocal delivery carries the tune with a calm sense of command, allowing the strange tale at its heart to appear almost reasonable for a moment. That takes real skill when the opening image involves a woman dreaming that her teeth have fallen out, before waking into the role of an agent under questioning with a drawer holding a supply of plastic lemons. Yes, it’s gloriously daft, and the song is even better for it! After two decades, a long pause and a joyous return, F.O. Machete sound completely at ease with their own sense of mischief.
What I love most about ‘Sleeper Cell’ is the slacker riffage. It leaves you eager for the album, eager for the next part of the tale, and delighted that F.O. Machete remain so willing to make their pop songs this playful and this strange. Whatever code this ‘Sleeper Cell’ has been programmed to deliver, it is already working on me.
‘Sleeper Cell’ is out now via Last Night From Glasgow. You can also check it out over on the F.O. Machete Bandcamp page.
You can follow F.O. Machete on social media here…
Photo Credit
Marisa Privitera Murdoch
Discover more from Static Sounds Club
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Static Sounds Club 