Rebecca Dow has spent much of 2026 moving at a remarkable speed. The conclusion of Virgins brought one chapter of her musical life to a close, while the months since have opened several fresh routes for her songwriting. Regular Static Sounds Club readers will already know how much I value her voice, both for its range and for the feeling she places inside every phrase. Her work with the alternative rock project Orchids extended that story, as did her recent collaborative project The Mountain which you can read about here.
On ‘Beneath You’, she joins forces with fellow Belfast multi-instrumentalist and former Virgins guitarist David Sloan. Their shared history gives the single an immediate sense of trust, while its darker tone suggests that both musicians are ready to carry their partnership somewhere new. Rebecca explains that this period of activity has arrived with a renewed appetite for working alongside other artists.
“Honestly, the creative floodgates have completely opened lately, the music is flowing way faster than I ever anticipated! I’m currently writing and recording across five different projects, and I can’t wait to roll a lot of it out over the coming months.”
“At its core, music isn’t a race or a competition, it’s about connecting and creating alongside incredible souls who are on their own paths. That collaborative energy is the absolute essence of life, and I’m so excited to share this early taste of what’s to come!”
Let’s hit play and see where we go.
‘Beneath You’ begins from a place of intimacy, with Rebecca’s vocal performance sitting close enough for every breath and change in tone to register. Her quieter delivery carries an exposed quality, as though the words are being considered at the same instant they are sung. Reverb surrounds her voice without blurring its emotional detail. That space gives the song a nocturnal character and leaves room for each phrase to linger before Sloan’s guitar begins to gather around it. Sloan brings a strong understanding of how Rebecca uses her voice. His guitar work provides light, shade and weight at carefully chosen points, allowing the arrangement to grow alongside the vocal rather than crowding it. Finer guitar textures gleam at the edges while heavier layers gradually deepen the song’s mood. Their years together in Virgins remain audible in the instinctive way these elements meet. As the song develops, Rebecca moves through the full range that made her previous work so memorable. The restrained passages carry vulnerability, while the larger vocal moments arrive with the force of feelings held back for too long. She brings emotional scale without losing control of the story.
‘Beneath You’ places Rebecca Dow and David Sloan at the beginning of a promising period beyond Virgins. Their musical connection remains clear, yet the single carries the freedom of two artists choosing how that connection develops from here. Rebecca sounds open, assured and ready to follow the ideas arriving across her many current projects. Sloan provides a setting that respects her softer delivery while giving her louder moments room to expand. Whatever comes next, ‘Beneath You’ suggests plenty is already moving beneath the surface.
My first proper encounter with Sunstinger came through ‘Bonnies Kaleidoscope’ in the summer of 2021. Its mix of atmosphere, weight and melody gave me every reason to champion this Scottish five piece on my DKFM show. I finally put that relationship into words recently when ‘Spare Me the Rapture’ arrived as the first single from their eponymous third EP. That song introduced a faster and heavier version of Sunstinger, although hearing it within the full six track sequence reveals how much further the band have travelled. Following Beyond the Frame and Worthless,Spare Me the Rapture feels like the next act in a continuing story. Taylor Wright, David McCulloch, Scott Gourlay and Bill Anderson are joined by drummer Colm Boyle, who entered the band at the beginning of 2026. His arrival has given Sunstinger a fresh rhythmic force, while the writing now carries a stronger sense of purpose across the entire record.
The band’s surroundings remain central to their music. Sunstinger come from areas of Scotland marked by industrial decline, where empty sites sit alongside the natural growth gradually taking their place. Those locations feed into an EP concerned with endurance, memory and the strange comfort people can find within unhappy circumstances. That idea guided Wright’s writing over an extended period.
“I find that I’m able to explore things much deeper lyrically when I have a concept that expands over a few months. It gives me the chance to really dig out my soul.”
You can hear the benefit of that approach in the way these six songs connect. The EP has been conceived as a complete piece, with its own beginning, middle and end. Each track occupies a different point within that emotional movement, while recurring guitar treatments, vocal details and rhythmic decisions hold everything together.
‘Zerosum’ begins in a gathering mass of noise. Chiming guitar chords soon emerge and offer a brief sense of openness before the full band closes in. The arrangement works through sharp changes in pressure, with the early clarity giving way to quicker guitar strikes and a huge covering of fuzz. Sunstinger’s three guitarists create density while preserving movement inside the mix. Individual lines appear behind the main chords, then recede before you can fully locate them. Wright sings from within, giving voice to the numb repetition of days that appear to lead nowhere.‘Zerosum’ begins the EP with the feeling of being trapped inside a cycle whose total always returns to the same figure.
Having already written about ‘Spare Me the Rapture’ as a single, I wondered whether its impact would change once placed inside the record. Its position immediately after ‘Zerosum’ makes its directness even more effective. Guitar phrases answer each other through the opening section while Bill Anderson’s bass gives the three guitar parts a firm centre. Boyle’s rapid snare announces the chorus and Wright’s “But I don’t care, so take me there” becomes the EP’s largest vocal hook. The guitars carry fuzz, reverse reverb and modulated tones, yet the melody remains easy to follow. Glasgow’s industrial character informs the lyrics, viewed through the eyes of someone trying to understand where they belong.
‘Deathdrive’ keeps the momentum moving through drums that carry a strong punk energy. Boyle drives the introduction forward before the verse changes the atmosphere completely. The guitars become hazier and more fluid around Wright’s vocal, while the rhythm continues underneath with an uneasy persistence. Later, the tempo begins to slow and the guitar parts lose their clean outlines, breaking into strange fragments that suggest perception starting to fail. Sunstinger use the arrangement to place you inside that state rather than describing it from a safe distance.
Droning loops open ‘I Half Remember’ and reset the pace. Acoustic guitar supplies the percussion, giving the song a more exposed foundation than anything preceding it. Electric guitar tones overlap beneath the vocal until their separate edges become difficult to identify. The softer arrangement gives Wright’s voice more room, while the surrounding effects keep the song suspended between recollection and invention. Certain images seem familiar, then their meaning changes as another line arrives beside them. Yes you can make parallels to My Bloody Valentine in the way the guitars blur pitch and texture, but Sunstinger use that technique very much in service of their own central idea.
‘Barely Here’ grew through the full band, beginning with Wright’s demo before each member added to it during rehearsals and recording. That shared development can be heard in the slow burn of its opening. Textural sounds enter first, followed by a solitary kick drum that quietly prepares you for the increase in weight. When the guitars arrive, they sound broad and physical, with enough space around them for Anderson’s coarse bass tone to register fully. His connection with Boyle’s kick gives the track its muscle. Around the midpoint, the band reduces the pressure and holds the song in check for a moment. The release comes through every instrument at once, followed by the chorus returning with a sense of release.
An eerie drum sound announces ‘Always Green’, with reversed treatments adding an unnatural edge to Boyle’s playing. The production suits lyrics rooted in Wright’s experiences of sleep paralysis, where awareness returns before the body follows. Sunstinger translate that state through sounds that appear recognisable while behaving in unfamiliar ways. Drums seem to move backwards into themselves and guitars occupy the uncertain space between waking thought and lingering dream. The track closes the EP by returning to the relationship between people and their environment, although the surroundings here feel internal.
Across these six songs, Sunstinger find new possibilities within the sound they have developed since Beyond the Frame. The EP examines the ways people make a home inside sadness, painting their walls and learning the contours of an environment they cannot easily leave. Spare Me the Rapture presents a band choosing to remain fully present in the difficult moment, and that choice gives this third chapter its lasting strength. Salvation can wait. Sunstinger have found their rapture.
The last time Sweeping Promises appeared on these pages, I was writing about Good Living Is Coming for You and thinking back to the afternoon in 2020 when Hunger for a Way Out first appeared in my Bandcamp feed. That debut had the feel of a punk record assembled with whatever space and equipment Lira Mondal and Caufield Schnug could find, and its thin guitars, forceful bass and direct vocals stayed with me. Their second album expanded that vocabulary through synths, stranger arrangements and flashes of saxophone, while the pair kept every part lean and purposeful. Three years later, You Say I Romanticize finds them rooted in their Kansas home and studio, a place where they record other bands, host touring musicians and continue developing their own songs. The new album took form across eighteen months, with touring drummer Spenser Gralla joining Mondal and Schnug to play the material with the physical force of their live set.
That longer recording period has produced their most immediate album yet. The ten songs move through writers, loners and obsessive figures whose private fixations have placed them at an angle to the people around them. Mary Shelley’s dystopian novel The Last Man feeds into one song, while the life and visions of Julian of Norwich inform another. Those ideas could have resulted in a dense record. Not so here.
Sweeping Promises keep everything moving through blunt bass lines, clipped guitar figures and choruses that arrive before you have fully caught your breath. Mondal responds with the widest vocal performance of the band’s career, moving between murmured phrases, melodic calls, guttural cries and notes that seem to stretch beyond the limits of the room.
Let’s drop the needle and dive in.
Sweeping Promises have developed a habit of opening their albums with a certified banger, and ‘Shooting Shadows’ keeps that run intact. Schnug’s guitar cuts into the song in short, pointed bursts while the rhythm section drives forward with barely a pause. Mondal sounds fully committed from the first line. Her voice carries urgency and force, rising above.You can hear the wall of sound method they developed for the album, yet the individual parts remain easy to follow. The bass presses straight ahead, the drums keep the pressure high and the guitar strikes at the edges. It is a fierce opening that makes its intentions clear within seconds.
The title ‘My Friend’s An Entomologist’ brings a little humour after that opening assault. An entomologist studies insects, which saves you the same Google search I had to consider, though the music carries a darker mood than the title suggests. The tempo remains high while the song slowly extends its reach through winding guitar solos and a drum pattern that refuses to loosen its grip. Schnug’s playing feels restless here, curling around the central rhythm and adding small disturbances rather than settling into a repeated riff. Mondal keeps her vocal measured during the early passages, allowing the unease to build through repetition. The closing section changes the emotional temperature as harmony voices gather around her. Those voices add warmth without clearing away the tension that came before.
A low bass rumble announces ‘Last Man’ and immediately gives the track a heavier centre. Mondal lets her phrases lengthen across the sparse guitar, taking more time over each word while the band holds back around her. The choruses break that restraint with a sudden increase in volume, and the guitar turns from a few bare marks into a rough block of sound. Midway through, the song stops with startling precision. A simple bass figure then begins the final section, giving Mondal a foundation for a repeated vocal line that gradually becomes mantra like.
‘Rapture, Or…’ brings the band back to the stripped vocabulary that first made them so easy to recognise. Bass and drums provide the body of the song while Schnug uses a short guitar motif to cut through the spaces between Mondal’s lines. That figure has a biting tone and enough melody to stay in your head after one play. The verses lower the intensity and leave Mondal exposed, then the fuller sections arrive with the rhythm section pressing harder beneath her. Sweeping Promises understand how little material a song sometimes needs. The title leaves the thought hanging, and the arrangement behaves in much the same way, pausing on the edge of release before the whole band presses forward again.
Ghostly guitar notes answer the opening bass riff on ‘Abduction On Camera’, giving the song a strange gleam from its first few bars. Mondal adopts a half-spoken delivery in the verses, sounding as though she is reporting events while trying to make sense of them at the same time. The choruses allow her voice to rise into a broad melody, and that change gives the track one of the album’s strongest transitions. Schnug keeps the guitar slightly removed from the main pulse, letting it shimmer around the bass rather than doubling it. Then a compact keyboard phrase appears and briefly alters the colour of the whole song. It caught me completely unprepared on my first play. The moment is brief, catchy and placed with real care, another example of the duo knowing exactly when a new sound will have the greatest effect.
‘My Anchoress’ bounces through the speakers with a rhythm that immediately separates it from the songs around it. Bass and drums work together in a springy pattern, giving the track a playful movement even as its subject reaches back to Julian of Norwich and her accounts of religious visions. Mondal meets that rhythm with a vocal line that has the repetition and directness of a nursery rhyme. Her phrasing makes the song easy to follow, then an occasional raw cry breaks through and changes the mood for a second. Those eruptions suggest the intensity beneath the historical reference, where devotion, isolation and authorship become inseparable. Schnug gives the vocal plenty of room, adding small guitar marks around the beat rather than filling every space. The result is a song that carries serious ideas through one of the album’s most instantly enjoyable arrangements. What a choon!
The pace eases only a little for ‘Cocoon’, allowing the tension to gather in a different way. The guitar has the clipped, economical attack of early Pixies, with brief phrases that leave as much silence as sound. Each note carries weight because Schnug refuses to crowd the arrangement. Mondal’s bass keeps everything fixed in place, repeating with a calm authority while her voice explores a broader range above it. She moves from lower, controlled passages into harsher peaks, making the track feel as though it is tightening around her. The title suggests enclosure, and the music follows that idea through repetition and restricted space. You begin to notice every small change, from a harder drum strike to the point where Mondal allows a note to fray at its edge. Her performance here contains anger, patience and exhaustion within the same few minutes.
A syncopated bass line gives ‘Accent’ its stride, with two guitar chords strummed across the top and very little else required. The song carries the wiry snap of early eighties new wave punk, and I kept hearing a trace of Blondie with Wilko Johnson drafted in on guitar. Mondal works inside the gaps, adjusting the stress and timing of her words so that the voice becomes another rhythmic instrument. The arrangement leaves nowhere for a weak idea to hide, and every part earns its place. A slight shift in the bass or a sharper vocal attack becomes a major event because the song has been reduced to its strongest components. Sweeping Promises have always understood this kind of economy, and ‘Accent’ turns it into pure pop pleasure.
The humour continues in ‘Does He Want To Be The Weatherman?’, a title that invites a story before the first note has arrived. The band answer with another lean, angular song where each instrument supplies exactly what the arrangement requires. The bass establishes the route; the drums keep the movement taut and the guitar adds clipped interruptions that stop the song becoming too comfortable. Mondal’s vocal gives the character at its centre a mixture of curiosity and exasperation.There is real discipline in the way Sweeping Promises refuse to decorate the track beyond its needs. Small changes in emphasis keep the repetition alive, while the brevity of each guitar phrase gives the rhythm extra room. It is economical writing with a sharp sense of personality, funny in its premise and exact in its execution.
By the time ‘Write Lightly’ arrives, the album has spent nine songs examining people who write, obsess, withdraw and seek meaning through their private fixations. The closing track turns that attention toward self-expression itself, considering how a writer’s voice can be rubbed away by professional expectations. Sweeping Promises set that idea against three chords and build upward from the simplest possible frame. Mondal saves one of her finest melodies for this final stretch. Her voice rises higher with each return, carrying anger and resolve in equal measure, while Schnug and Gralla increase the pressure beneath her. The arrangement never loses sight of its basic structure, which makes the scale of the ending even more impressive. Those final vocals tower over the band and leave a physical aftereffect once the instruments stop. The album closes with a voice refusing to reduce itself for anyone else.
You Say I Romanticize takes the qualities that first made Sweeping Promises special and places them inside fuller arrangements. The bass remains the anchor, Schnug’s guitar still speaks through short and pointed phrases, and Mondal continues to turn direct melodies into performances filled with character. The change comes through the strength of the ensemble playing, the wider range of her voice and the way each arrangement serves the people inside these songs. Their outcasts may live through isolation, obsession and misunderstanding, yet the music gives them presence and momentum. Across ten tracks, the band make intellectual references feel physical. The title accuses Sweeping Promises of romanticizing these figures, and the album answers by giving them the space to speak in their own difficult, unruly voices.
I knew God of War through the people involved before I had properly spent time with the project itself. Douglas Dulgarian’s work in They Are Gutting A Body of Water has made him one of the most recognisable figures in Philadelphia’s current guitar music community, while Scott Turner and Sam Silbert bring their own history through Hooky, with Silbert also playing in circle of fire. Put those three names together and you could reasonably expect a record full of warped guitars and strange production choices. God of War go much further.
The trio first appeared in 2023 with serotonin, an album that introduced their fondness for metallic textures, twisted riffs, console sounds and melancholy pop writing. Molly Picture continues that approach while opening the music up to more colour and surprise. You can hear the album’s roots in half remembered video game soundtracks, skate videos and hours spent watching somebody else master a level you could barely survive. Those memories give the record its tactile electronic atmosphere. God of War use them to build songs that feel familiar for a few seconds before a synth bends out of proportion, a guitar erupts through the mix, or a vocal slips behind another electronic disguise.
Let’s drop the needle and see where the album takes us.
A few seconds into ‘some Prank’, an acoustic guitar sets the record in motion with an earnest strum. The simplicity of that opening gives the electric guitar plenty of room to make its presence felt through short, sharp stabs that jolt the flow. Then those synthesised pan pipe sounds appear. That choice is playful and feels completely at home here. They lend the track a bright, slightly artificial glow, as though a forgotten menu screen has started leaking into an indie rock recording. The vocal sits comfortably among these details, keeping the song grounded while the arrangement keeps flicking small ideas into your ear. As an opener, it introduces the album’s character in a direct way.
The mood drops lower on ‘defeater’, where a winding bassline gives the track its centre of gravity. It moves with a slow, serpentine quality, curling beneath the verses while the rest of the instrumentation leaves space around it. The vocals use a call and response pattern that gives the song the feeling of an internal conversation, with one voice offering a line and another returning from somewhere deeper in the mix. When the chorus arrives, language gives way to mysterious ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’. That move makes the song feel uncertain and emotionally exposed. The melody remains clear as the meaning becomes harder to pin down. I like how they allow the bass to guide the track, leaving the guitars and synths room to breathe. It creates a heavy, downcast atmosphere which makes the chorus feel wider when those voices finally spread out.
I had already spent time with ‘mickey don’t pose’ before hearing the album, having played it on my DKFM show as one of those songs that catches my ear. Within Molly Picture, it feels even sharper. Glitchy details constantly peck at the melody while a vocoder vocal floats above several synth lines moving in different directions. Some carry their own tune, while others seem built from vocal samples cut into new forms. A strong pop melody keeps the song playful and easy to follow amid everything happening around it. It keeps moving as though another prize is always waiting just beyond the next screen.
‘Lindas’ turns the volume up and lets the record bare its teeth. Fuzzed guitars collide with distorted synths until the mix starts to feel physically crowded, every frequency pressing against the next. The first heavy passage has a blunt force that immediately changes the album’s temperature. They then reduce everything to vocals and synth, creating a quieter section that feels strangely exposed after the impact that came before it. That return to space lasts just long enough to reset your ears before the track begins thickening again. Toward the end, the guitars become harsher and the rhythm grows more punishing, edging close to death metal while retaining the electronic language established earlier. It’s a bold piece of sequencing too, arriving straight after one of the album’s most melodic moments and tearing a hole through the middle of the record.
The title ‘raphael Bad as shit’ gives you a fair warning that God of War are operating according to their own private rules. A melodic synth riff leads the way, carrying a clean line that gradually morphs. As the track develops, that same melodic idea begins to resemble a floating glide guitar part, with the boundary between electronic tone and processed string becoming difficult to locate. God of War keep adding layers. A new texture slips behind the melody, another tone expands the upper frequencies, and the whole piece grows until you are staring at a wall of noise built from beautiful individual parts. The pleasure comes from hearing that wall being assembled in front of you. Each new layer alters the weight or colour of what came before, allowing the track to grow naturally from a simple synth phrase into one of the album’s fullest moments.
‘Gorgeouses apartment’ walks into the room with its hips already moving. The introduction has a proper dancefloor feel, with the rhythm carrying a loose boogie that gives the album another sudden change of posture. The guitar becomes the main source of mischief during the breaks. It coils across the beat with loose movement and precise timing, bending through the stereo field and warping the space around it. That guitar part gets me every time. It seems to move independently of the track before meeting the beat at exactly the right point. The electronic elements keep the groove firm underneath, allowing the guitar to behave as strangely as it likes.
A wobbling mass of sound introduces ‘new deal’, rising and receding in repeated pulses that make the track feel as though it is arriving in waves. The synth tones bend as they pass, creating a queasy movement that gives the music a physical presence. Above them, the vocal repeats with a mantra-like quality. I keep trying to work out what is being said, and each listen seems to offer a different answer. That uncertainty becomes part of the song’s charm. Your ear starts treating the voice as another instrument, following its rhythm and form as the words merge with the surrounding electronics. The arrangement remains spacious enough for each swell to register, and the repetition gradually changes your sense of time. By the midpoint, the track feels suspended inside its own loop. Small shifts in tone and volume keep it moving while the central phrase continues to circle.
‘No Junior’s’ builds itself around a circular guitar figure that seems content to repeat while the rest of the track assembles piece by piece. The short running time gives every entrance extra weight. Booming drums arrive and widen the room, followed by jangling guitar, sampled synth voices and a deep vocal that sits low in the mix. God of War introduce each element slowly enough for you to hear how it changes the pattern already in place. The circular guitar remains the anchor as its meaning shifts with every new arrival. What began as a simple repeated phrase starts to sound tense once the drums hit, then stranger again when the sampled voices appear. Everything gathers towards a sudden crescendo.
‘mischief night’ begins by encouraging the idea that God of War might give you a mellow synth piece. The opening settles into a softer electronic atmosphere and leaves plenty of air around the central tones. Then the distorted guitars arrive with a huge thump, changing the scale of the track in an instant. God of War respond by finding another unexpected sound to place inside the frame. Steel drums enter and add a bright, percussive tone against the heavier guitars, a combination that feels bizarre until you hear how naturally the parts speak to each other. The steel drums cut through the distortion with clean, rounded notes, while the guitar supplies the rough edge around them. Every new sound alters the track’s mood, and the band trust these unusual elements to establish their own connection.
The final track begins with the acoustic guitars of ‘Recital’ sounding close, rough and almost unfinished, as though somebody has pressed record during a first run through. That apparent simplicity gives the closer a personal quality after the layered electronics and distortion that dominate so much of the album. The song gradually expands into a fully realised arrangement. Electric guitar enters with a cleaner tone, the bass moves smoothly underneath, and the vocal grows into a hook that immediately feels built for the closing credits. After an album full of abrupt turns, processed voices and overloaded textures, ‘Recital’ closes with direct songwriting at its centre. The production carries plenty of detail and the melody holds your attention all the way through. It is a stunning finish, and one that makes you want to return to the beginning to hear how far the record has travelled.
Molly Picture sounds like three musicians testing how much personality they can fit into ten songs while protecting the hooks that hold everything together. Beneath those details sits a melancholy that gives the production choices real emotional weight. Even at its funniest and most playful, a softer feeling remains close to the surface. That thread gives the noise and electronic colour something to gather around. God of War have made an album for repeated listens, the kind where a sampled voice or hidden guitar line suddenly becomes your favourite part several plays later. By the end, the pixels have settled and the Molly Picture has come fully into view.
Molly Picture is released on 7 August 2026 via Julia’s War Recordings. You can check it out over on the God of War Bandcamp page.
I was buzzing when Rebecca Dow reached out to tell me about her new project. Static Sounds Club readers will know her through Virgins, a band I have written about with real affection over the years. The Mountain begins a new chapter for Dow, joining her with Northern Irish producer and musician Darren Speers. Dow has described her studio partnership with Speers as “pure spiritual synchronicity”, a phrase that provides a useful way into the track. ‘Objects’ sounds guided by shared instinct, with the performance and production moving together from the opening moments. Speers understands the value of Dow’s voice and places it firmly at the emotional centre. Every production choice seems designed to support the mood around her. The arrangement is stunning, letting each section settle before the next part appears creating the sense of two musicians listening closely to one another and allowing the song to find its own voice.
As ‘Objects’ develops, you can understand why its early radio plays inspired comparisons with the opening of a film. The song establishes its emotional temperature before revealing where it intends to go. Speers gives the production a wide sense of space, using piano and strings. The atmosphere feels almost visual, encouraging your mind to place scenes alongside the music. Dow’s vocal presence provides the point your attention keeps returning to. Listeners familiar with Virgins will recognise the emotional conviction in her performance, though The Mountain gives her voice a whole new spacious musical setting. Speers responds by keeping the surrounding arrangement focused on tone and movement. The music grows around the vocal rather than competing with it, and the closeness of Dow’s delivery remains intact even as the song suggests a much larger setting. That balance gives ‘Objects’ intimacy and scale at the same time.
For a debut, ‘Objects’ feels settled in its intentions. The song feels born from genuine connection rather than a partnership assembled for convenience. Speers provides a setting where Dow can explore another side of her voice, while her performance gives his production a human centre. The Mountain is the very definition of collaboration, with both members contributing to the identity taking form around them.
‘Objects’ gives The Mountain a thoughtful beginning and leaves you curious about the possibilities ahead. This debut feels like the opening scene of a much larger story, and I am keen to hear where the pair take it from here. That connection gives ‘Objects’ a weight of its own, and it already feels worth holding onto.
‘Objects’ is out now. You can check it out on Spotify and YouTube.
I‘ve just come back from having a very strong word with myself. After looking back through the Static Sounds Club archives, it turns out I’ve never written about Sunstinger before. Let’s rectify that immediately.
Sunstinger are a Scottish five piece who have already released two amazing EP’s in Beyond the Frame and Worthless, not to mention a steady run of singles. The band are Taylor Wright, David McCulloch, Scott Gourlay and Bill Anderson now with brand new drummer Colm Boyle who joined at the start of 2026. My introduction to the band was their atmospheric single ‘Bonnies Kaleidoscope’ from their Beyond The Frame EP back in the summer of 2021. It had that heavy sound I want from my gaze and this was a band from Scotland too so I had to champion them on my DKFM Radio show,
They return to us now with a new single ‘Spare Me the Rapture’ which introduces this version of Sunstinger with a faster pulse and, dare I say it, an even heavier sound. It also opens the door to their forthcoming six track EP of the same name, the third chapter in a body of work that keeps growing more potent and more assured.
Things are noticeably different from the off. Sunstinger have really turned up the fuzz on this one. The first hook comes from the guitars. Short phrases answer one another across the mix, creating an immediate sense of movement before the rhythm section tightens its grip. Sunstinger have three guitarists, and that could easily crowd a song, yet each part earns its space. One line supplies the melodic thread, another thickens the edges with fuzz, while a third folds backwards through sheer atmosphere. You can follow those separate paths with each listen, then hear them lock together when the arrangement begins to expand. Wright meets the rising volume with one of his most direct vocal performances. It climbs through the guitars rather than disappearing beneath them. It gives the chorus a human focus and turns the song’s scale into something personal. The production keeps revealing small details around that central hook. Through headphones, you can hear the care given to separation. Through speakers, the full band launches at you as one large body of sound. Both approaches work because the song has a clear melodic core beneath the effects.
As the first glimpse of the forthcoming EP, ‘Spare Me the Rapture’ suggests Sunstinger are entering a period where scale and songwriting can rise together. When salvation feels distant, they turn up the volume and make a home in the rapture they already have.
‘Spare Me the Rapture’ is released on July 23. You can check it out over on the Sunstinger Bandcamp page. You can pre order the EP now over on the Sunstinger Big Cartel Page. If you’re quick you might be able to grab an exclusive bundle.
Seeing Eva Cord’s name attached to Foglights immediately caught my attention. I have followed The Cords from their formation, through their early releases and into last year’s self-titled debut album, watching their songs find a home with Skep Wax and Slumberland along the way. Whilst the band are already working on a second long player Eva has also found space for this new four song project with Archie Ingram, who records as Stone Anthem. Archie released his debut album Solux Rex through Glass Modern Records earlier in 2026, so Nous Deux brings together two artists who have each reached an important point in their own work.
Foglights draw from both sides of that partnership. Archie brings the thicker psychedelic tones associated with Stone Anthem, while Eva carries across the heartfelt indie pop instinct that has made The Cords such an easy band to love. There’s washed out guitar tones, steady melodies and lyrics built around emotional exposure. You can hear these two folk learning how their voices and ideas fit together, and that closeness gives the EP its character.
The first glimpse arrives with ‘The Rain Felt Kind’, released as a single today. It’s also the opener for the EP.
‘The Rain Felt Kind’ begins at an unhurried pace, allowing its tremolo guitar to ripple through the spaces around the vocals. Each chord seems to quiver for a moment before the next one arrives, creating a soft frame for Eva and Archie’s voices. They sit close together in the mix, and the slight differences in their delivery give the melody warmth. I love the emotional suggestion of the title as well. Rain becomes a form of comfort, something gentle enough to soften the edges of a difficult moment. That idea runs through the performance, with the guitar maintaining its wavering pulse while the vocals keep the song grounded and personal.
A gentle organ enters on ‘I Don’t Know’ and immediately opens the sound. Its sustained notes sit behind chiming guitars, giving the arrangement an added lift while the rhythm keeps moving at an easy pace. The vocals come forward with greater directness here, and the straight up delivery suits a title built around uncertainty. I kept thinking of Teenage Fanclub’s ‘Guiding Star’, especially in the way the organ expands the song while leaving the melody clear.
My EP highlight arrives with ‘The Day the Light Stayed (Longer Than Us)’, where Foglights step into a brighter form of pop. Strummed acoustic guitar changes the texture straight away, giving the rhythm a more open feel and bringing a lighter touch to the recording. Then the backing voices arrive with those ba ba ba parts, and the whole song seems to smile. This is where Eva and Archie’s shared instinct for melody comes through most clearly. You can enjoy the pop pleasure of the arrangement while the words leave a quieter thought behind.
The organ returns for ‘A Brighter Kind of Almost’, closing the EP with its most spacious arrangement. Gentle acoustic strumming and close vocals hold the centre for much of the song, while circular keyboard tones move around them and widen the edges of the recording. The influence of Spectrum feels present in those electronic curls and soft flashes of sound. Archie’s psychedelic background comes through in the organ treatment, while Eva’s pop instinct keeps the melody near and approachable. As the final track, it carries a sense of unfinished possibility. They allow that uncertainty to remain part of the song, and the ending leaves you with the voices and the small movements around them.
Across four songs, Nous Deux introduces Foglights with a strong sense of who Eva Cord and Archie Ingram become when they write together. Their voices provide the emotional centre, and the arrangements surround them with tones that move between indie pop warmth and gentle psychedelia. For followers of The Cords, the EP shows Eva working with slower tempos, wider spaces and a softer vocal setting. For listeners who know Stone Anthem, these songs bring Archie’s denser ideas into a close and personal setting. The pair leave enough room for vulnerability, melody and curiosity to sit beside each other, giving every track its own character while holding the EP together as one cohesive listen. Foglights have made a debut that understands the strength of their two individual musical histories sharing the same stage. On Nous Deux, the brightest moments belong to the two of them.
Nous Deux is released on cassette on the 21st August via Skep Wax and Slumberland Records with pre orders open now. The single ‘The Rain Felt Kind’ out today. You can check it out over on the Foglights Bandcamp page.
A few years ago, Feeble Little Horse fell into my world with their debut album proper Hayday. I was obsessed immediately. That was followed by Girl with Fish which pushed their name well beyond the Pittsburgh DIY scene and introduced a wider audience to a group that could twist shoegaze, noise rock and indie pop into something truly unique. Since then, they have toured relentlessly, signed to Saddle Creek and continued refining a sound that refuses to sit inside any one genre. With founding member Ryan Walchonski now departed, Sebastian Kinsler, Lydia Slocum and Jake Kelley return as a trio on Bitknot. Rather than filling the gap, they use the opportunity to rethink how these songs are built. The guitars remain huge, the melodies remain irresistible, yet electronic textures now play an equal role in shaping the record. If Girl with Fish hinted at where Feeble Little Horse could head next, Bitknot arrives with a clear sense of purpose.
Let’s drop the needle and see where it takes us.
The opening moments of ‘Doorway’ throw you straight into that new direction. Feedback gives way to thick guitar chords before quickly giving way to a strange pause that leaves Lydia Slocum’s voice hanging in space. That stop start tension becomes one of the song’s greatest strengths. Jake Kelley’s drumming keeps everything tightly controlled while layers of distortion gradually creep back into the picture. Slocum sings with a conversational honesty that makes every lyric feel close enough to touch. By the closing seconds you already have a sense that this album intends to play with our expectations.
Barely giving you time to catch your breath, ‘Poison’ appears. The song packs an astonishing amount into such a short running time. Warbly synth and almost folk guitar play off each other puzzling and exciting in equal amounts. You can almost picture the band writing this one with the intention of squeezing every possible idea into the smallest available space. It feels restless, impatient and completely addictive. Every listen reveals another small production detail hidden beneath the surface.
That intensity melts into ‘Rewind’, one of the album’s brightest moments. The guitars loosen their grip while shimmering synth textures begin taking centre stage. Slocum’s vocal sits gently above the arrangement, delivering a melody that quietly lodges itself in your head long after the song finishes. You can hear the band’s affection for great pop music throughout the track. Every hook lands naturally while the surrounding electronics constantly shift shape, giving the song a playful quality that rewards repeated listens. To say this song is beautiful isn’t doing it justice.
By the time ‘Shady’ arrives the album is already refusing to stay in one lane. The guitars regain their warbly edge and the rhythm section pushes everything forward with a gentle shuffle. Kinsler has always known how to make guitars sounds that are strangely welcoming and that balance continues here. The hook arrives almost before you expect it, disappearing again just as quickly. That brevity becomes part of the appeal. The band leave you wanting another minute instead of stretching the idea beyond its natural life.
Anyone who caught my recent radio show will already know how much I enjoyed ‘Dior’. Hearing it again within the context of the full album only strengthens its impact. This is Feeble Little Horse writing one of their most immediate songs without sacrificing any of their personality. Beneath the riffs sits an uncomfortable look at envy, social comparison and the strange pressure that comes from constantly measuring yourself against carefully filtered online lives. Slocum delivers those feelings with humour and honesty, making the song feel deeply personal while remaining wonderfully catchy. The playful production touches, including the memorable censored moment, stop the heavier themes from becoming overwhelming. You find yourself singing along before fully appreciating what the lyrics are actually saying.
‘Paris’ acts almost like an interlude, although calling it filler would miss the point entirely. Its brief running time creates breathing room after the emotional rush of ‘Dior’. Strange electronic fragments, treated guitars and distant vocal textures pass through the mix like disconnected thoughts. This is another piece of their world building in music.
One of the most affecting moments arrives with ‘Cradle’. The arrangement slows just enough to allow every instrument room to shine. Slocum’s performance carries a quiet tenderness as the band explore grief and the difficult process of sitting with painful emotions rather than searching for an easy distraction. The guitars here don’t swell into thick walls of sound so they never overwhelm the vocal. Instead, they wrap themselves around it, allowing the emotional weight of the song to grow naturally. It feels reflective without becoming sentimental, offering one of the clearest examples of how much Feeble Little Horse have matured as songwriters. By this point you begin to realise that Bitknot is holding together remarkably well, each song feeding naturally into the next while steadily expanding the album’s central ideas.
As the second half begins, ‘Upside Down’ feels like somebody has plugged fresh circuitry into the album. This is pure synth pop through a feeble little horse kinda filter. The synths flicker around the edges while Kelley’s drums keep everything firmly grounded. The contrast between mechanical sounds, pitched up vocal parts and organic playing becomes one of the song’s greatest pleasures. The vocals glide across the top carrying equal measures of uncertainty and determination. Every element feels carefully placed, creating one of those songs that reveals another hidden layer every time you return to it.
That momentum feeds perfectly into ‘Guts’, a track that perfectly sums up what makes this band such an absorbing listen. The opening seconds introduce warped synth textures before thick guitars suddenly arrive to reclaim the spotlight. It would have been easy for those competing ideas to fight each other, yet the arrangement feels completely natural. Slocum continues examining uncomfortable emotions with striking openness, giving the song an emotional centre beneath all the sonic experimentation. You can hear how much confidence the trio now have in their own instincts. Every strange production choice earns its place.
There is something wonderfully restless about ‘Shopping’. The song takes the familiar habit of endlessly scrolling through carefully curated online lives and turns it into something deeply personal. Slocum’s lyrics paint vivid pictures of comparison, insecurity and wanting pieces of somebody else’s identity, while the band surround those feelings with some of the album’s biggest hooks. The synths create a tidal wave, the guitars roar with purpose, the rhythm section drives everything forward and yet the melody remains effortlessly memorable. It’s easy to understand why this has become one of the record’s defining moments. Few bands are writing about modern life with this level of honesty while still delivering songs that you immediately want to play again.
Everything reaches its conclusion with ‘DMT’, which takes its title from the album’s recurring themes of death, money and technology rather than psychedelia. The song grows steadily darker as layers of guitars, electronics and processed vocals collide with increasing intensity. Slocum sounds almost overwhelmed by the forces surrounding her while Kinsler and Kelley steadily tighten the screws behind her. The closing minutes become genuinely overwhelming in the best possible way, wrapping noise, melody and frustration into one final release of tension. It feels like the logical destination for everything that has come before, bringing together the album’s fascination with human connection, consumer culture and the uneasy relationship between our physical and online lives.
One of the qualities I admire most about Bitknot is how naturally it balances accessibility with experimentation. Every song contains a melody that lingers long after the album has finished, yet those hooks are constantly interrupted by strange textures, sudden edits and production ideas that keep you listening closely. The guitars still possess the fuzzy warmth that first drew so many people towards Feeble Little Horse, though they now share equal importance with synths, samples and electronic manipulation. Rather than feeling stitched together from different influences, everything serves the same emotional purpose. The record continually asks where genuine human connection still exists when so much of modern life takes place through screens, algorithms and endless consumption. Those questions never feel heavy handed because the songs themselves remain full of humour, vulnerability and genuine heart.
Having followed this band for the past few years, Bitknot feels like the point where every piece of the puzzle clicks into place. The trio have sharpened their songwriting without sanding away the rough edges that made them so appealing in the first place. They still sound playful. They still sound unpredictable. They simply understand their own identity with greater clarity than ever before. Whether you arrive here through shoegaze, indie rock, noise pop or pure curiosity, this is an album that rewards your attention from beginning to end. Every return uncovers another thread woven into the knot, making Bitknot a record well worth getting tangled up in.
Japan has an uncanny knacked of producing bands that not only nail the shoegaze sound but also evolve it too. kinoue64 is exactly that kind of band. This is my first time writing about the Hiroshima based project, so 大人になる, which translates as Becoming an Adult, becomes my doorway into a catalogue already full of fuzz, melody, Vocaloid culture and tender overload. Now I should kick off here by saying I know nothing about this band. It’s really hard to find out any info on who they are but from what I can gather this is a solo project with a long-varied history
Releases such as 空間、事情、時間、事象。, The Time Machine School, 半永久機関 and 日常消滅 show a project moving between shoegaze, indie rock, alternative rock and Mikgazer ideas, with Hatsune Miku and kinoue64’s own voice both forming part of the story. 大人になる lands as a concise eight track record that has had me in its spell since first listen. Let’s dive in because I’m dying to tell you all about it.
The opener shares its name with the album and it’s a real scene setter. The drums sound distorted and raw which gives the atmospheric synth and jangly guitars something to play off. Vocal wise its Miku style creating this weirdly wonky vibe that sucked me in immediately. Holding it all down is a killer melody and that’s the secret sauce. All the effected parts add the fairy dust on top to make it truly magical/
‘幸せ’, which I think means ‘Happiness’, is a bite sized aural treat. It distils the approach of the opener into this tasty little morsel. The tremolo synth part lifts the melody and gives your ear something new to fixate about.
‘才能’, translated as ‘Talent’, brings an indie sensibility into the room. The drums, now more real sounding, move with more insistence, the guitars pick out the melody and flare around the vocal. The vocal retains its weird pitched up Miku effect but it weirdly suits this more straightforward song. Well, as straightforward as a kinoue64 song can be.
At one minute and thirty-six seconds, ‘没’ feels like a thought that has been crossed out in thick pen. The title can be read as ‘Scrapped’ or ‘Rejected’, and I like ‘Scrapped’ in the context of this record because it has a blunt little sting to it. This is a game of two halves. One fast and frenetic and the other mellow and moody. How is it possible to be this musically generous in such a short span of time. Hats off from me.
‘工作’ carries the sense of ‘Making’ or ‘Construction’, and it arrives at exactly the right point in the album. After talent and rejection, we get the act of building again. The song feels assembled from scuffed pieces, with guitar lines layered around a rhythm section that keeps the whole thing shuffling along. The pop aesthetic is maintained and honed further with a chorus that really connects, maybe not verbally, due to my monolinguistic limitations, but the feeling is there, all warm and fuzzy.
By the time ‘捨てる’ arrives, the album takes off. The title means ‘To Throw Away’ or ‘Discard’ but this isn’t any throw away number. The guitars feel heavier and more textured. Vocally it’s still Miku but more up front and present if you get what I mean. Again, there’s a tangible warmth in the melody and vocal delivery that elevates this song into a stone-cold bop.
The most weirdly funny title here might be ‘まともになる’, which translates as ‘Becoming Normal’ or ‘Becoming Proper’. After everything the album has already put on the table, normality starts to sound like the strangest idea of all. The song has a more direct melodic shape, and there is a pop instinct running beneath it all that makes it one of the record’s most immediate moments. The guitars are cleaner here and pick out a gentle melody. The vocals really stretch out in the chorus sections lifting you up and sending you skywards.
The album ends with ‘ゴミ’, meaning ‘Rubbish’ or ‘Trash’, which feels like the only possible place to leave a record this tangled up in growing pains. It is a wonderfully blunt title, and kinoue64 gives it more emotional reach than you might expect. The guitars spread out with a weary glow and the drums keep the track grounded. The melody makes you feel like you are standing among all the things the previous songs tried to name. Happiness, talent, rejection, making, discarding, normality. By the closer, they have all become part of the same pile. What makes ‘ゴミ’ work is the way it treats rubbish as something human rather than merely ugly. These are the scraps left over from trying, failing, starting again and trying once more. As a final song, it leaves the album open ended in the right way,
By the end of 大人になる, kinoue64 has made a record that turns growing up into a series of small, noisy reckonings. I’m so glad I happened across this album. I can’t tell you how much joy I’ve had soaking up its many textures. For a first Static Sounds Club encounter with kinoue64, this feels like the right introduction: fuzzy, direct, strange, tuneful and full of feeling. I’m really going to enjoy exploring the back catalogue and I’ll be hoping that we get a vinyl release for this one.
I had the pleasure of heading along to The Old Hairdressers venue in Glasgow recently to catch Selkie performing live. If you’ve followed the blog for a while, you will already know her music. If not, allow me to introduce you. Selkie is a Scottish musician working through voice led ambient pop and electronic folk. With her debut EP inWaves arriving on 28 August 2026, new single ‘Gold’ feels like an important marker on the way there, a song that looks at repair, renewal and the decision to begin again with open eyes.
The idea behind ‘Gold’ comes from kintsugi, the Japanese practice of repairing what has broken with precious metal, leaving the joins visible rather than hidden. Selkie takes that idea and turns it into something intimate and musical, building the song around expressive vocals, electric guitar and glitch flecked production. Her amazing voice sits close, clear and full of feeling, while the production places tiny fractures around it. Little electronic details crackle and shift beneath the surface, giving the song a physical quality.
What I really like about ‘Gold’ is the way it keeps its scale controlled while still feeling wide open. The vocal layers give the song an almost devotional quality, with voices folding over one another in a way that feels otherworldly. The electric guitar brings a grounded ache to the piece, adding texture without overcrowding the vocal space. Around that, the glitchy production keeps catching your ear, little sparks of sound appearing and vanishing as the song reveals its extent. It gives the track an unusual character, sitting somewhere between folk song, ambient piece and electronic pop experiment.
The accompanying music video, filmed by Ter Nam in the arid mountains of Chile, feels like a fitting visual chapter before inWaves arrives. Even without leaning too hard on the imagery, there is something in that setting that suits the song’s sense of exposure and renewal. You can check out the video below.
As the final step before the debut EP, ‘Gold’ gives you a strong sense of where Selkie is heading. The sound feels more defined, the emotional language feels more direct, and the production has an undeniable confidence. As a lead into inWaves, it makes the EP feel very close now, as though the tide is already moving in. Selkie lets the repaired lines show, and that is where ‘Gold’ finds its shine.
