Peplo have been promising us new music, a debut album no less for ages now, so new single ‘For His Better Three Quarters’ arrives with a flurry of confetti and popping of corks from me. The Glasgow based indie pop quartet have been building toward their debut album We’re Not Getting Out of Here for a good while now, and they’re ready to let us have a listen.
The band are Mark Hinds on drums, Daniel Young on bass, Cit Lennox on vocals and Iain O’Donnell on guitar, with Cit and Iain forming the songwriting partnership at the centre of the group. With airplay already coming through BBC Radio 6 Music, BBC Introducing on BBC Radio Scotland, BBC Radio nan Gàidheal, Amazing Radio and beyond, plus past appearances at Celtic Connections, Hidden Door and ButeFest, Peplo are arriving at this album campaign with a fair bit of groundwork already behind them. I first discovered the band as they played a support slot in Glasgow’s infamous 13th Note. I hadn’t heard anything like them and was immediately drawn to that, uniqueness for want of a better word. So, what have they been up to since then. O’Donnell fills us in.
“We are entirely DIY and we’ve self-financed our debut album We’re Not Getting Out of Here. We’ll drop the album with vinyl and CD towards the end of 2026 after a series of single releases. We’ve been recording, mixing, and mastering this record for a few years now – so to finally be in a position where we are happy with the end result, and in a position to release it, is probably our biggest success to date.”
Recorded at Chem19 Studios by Jamie Savage and mastered by Paul Savage, the single comes with a strong Scottish studio lineage behind it, with names linked to The Twilight Sad, King Creosote, Belle and Sebastian, Mogwai and Arab Strap sitting close to the recording process. You can sense why Peplo would want that level of care around the first single from a record they have lived with for years.
The title has that peculiar Peplo charm too. ‘For His Better Three Quarters’ has a conversational oddness to it, the kind of phrase that makes you want to hit play. It suggests affection, imbalance, loyalty and a quiet joke shared at close range. The song opens with a slow build, giving the guitars room to glow before the rhythm section starts to tighten its grip. O’Donnell’s guitar has a glossy, dreamy tone that sits beautifully against the steadier weight of Daniel Young’s bass and Mark Hinds’ drums. When that chorus arrives, the song lifts with real confidence. Lennox sings with force and feeling, and their Scots accent cuts clean through the arrangement in a way that gives the song its emotional identity. The vocal does a lot of the heavy work here. It brings warmth, bite and a sense of lived experience, while the guitars open out around it with a sheen that suits the song’s indie pop heart. You catch little flourishes tucked into the sides, the kind of bright, literate melodic touches that bring Aztec Camera in their prime to mind.
As the first step toward, We’re Not Getting Out of Here, ‘For His Better Three Quarters’ does exactly what a strong lead single should do. It gives you the band’s sense of humour, their independence, their melodic instinct and their belief in the album waiting behind it. Peplo have clearly taken the long route to this point, and that suits them. The song feels considered, personal and ready to be heard. If the album follows through on the promise here, Peplo may already have given us the better three quarters of the story.
‘For His Better Three Quarters’ is out now. You can check it out now on the Peplo Bandcamp page.
You can follow Peplo on social media here…
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