New singles from No Windows, Y, Junk Drawer and L.A. Witch, plus the return of Wet Leg.
No Windows by Rosie Sco | Words: Lloyd Bolton, Brad Sked
This week's new music roundup comes as we hit the stride of the high season for new bands' EPs and albums. Y's debut 'Why' and the latest album from L.A. Witch are among many highlights out this week, while new singles from No Windows and Junk Drawer tease exciting collections a little further down the line. We also have a new single from Wet Leg to sink our teeth into, three years after the release of their self-titled debut album.
No Windows – 'Easter Island'
Precocious Edinburgh duo No Windows are back with the latest taster of their second EP, 'The Great Traitor'. 'Easter Island' has a kind of revelatory frank simplicity that explains the hype that has had people casting this duo as heirs to the greatest songwriters of the 20th Century. The song captures them making efficient use of words and images to draw all the emotion out of a bleak morning where you can't face your own breakfast. Soft, harmonised vocals add to the lyrical intimacy and in this sense recall artists like Trust Fund, and that sort of bedroom indie resourcefulness hits home as chimes and soft piano chart the way through the song. (Lloyd Bolton)
Wet Leg – 'catch these fists'
After their rapid rise to international stardom across 2021 and 2022, Wet Leg left themselves with a lot to live up to beyond their self-titled debut album. 'catch these fists' makes a good go at breaking the brief silence. The song's lyrics wind a familiar charming randomness, finding emotional pull in the falling of a medicine ball and jumping off pop images like "levelling up". Rhythmically, the song has a drive that aspires to the high bar set by the duo's first hits, but this is contrasted with an angular, post-punk riff that recalls in a way the more rough-edged territory of a group like Sorry. The song settles into a tale of a big night out with lyrics that refuse to be taken seriously ("ketamine… giddy up!"), and this collage of images reproduces that youthful constellation of frustrations and joys laid out side by side. (Lloyd Bolton)
Y – 'Ladies Who'
Released ahead of the full EP 'Why', which is out today, Y's latest single 'Ladies Who' is more of a ballad, something of a surprise in the wake of the dancefloor blitzes of their previous two singles. Lyrics challenge female roles and seem to celebrate a breakup, valorising, among other things, "ladies who kill". Though it does have its balladic touches, the song is still filled with details that indicate a group at one with its live audience, jerky guitar hooks, insistent cowbell, driving bass and shouts of saxophone providing an electrified context that matches the acerbic lyrics. (Lloyd Bolton)
Junk Drawer – 'Nids Niteca'
'Nids Niteca' is a skronking gem from Belfast four-piece Junk Drawer. Tight rhythm creates a groove of resistant melody reminiscent of contemporaries like Omni and Cola (they will be touring with the latter this Spring), over which vocalist Stevie Lennox wails. On their upcoming album 'Days of Heaven', the group take inspiration from considering "the lost promised futures that Ulster could have had". With 'Nids Niteca', we feel that sense of loss and fragmentation sitting comfortably among jagged guitars and hard rhythmic edges. The title comes from an empty shopfront in Belfast, a shop that apparently nobody in Belfast could remember ever being open. (Lloyd Bolton)
L.A. Witch – 'Icicle'
L.A. Witch have returned, sharing the video to the hexed filled goth-garage-banger 'Icicle', taken from their new album 'DOGGOD', which is out today. A brooding brew of inspirations like The Cure and Siouxsie and The Banshees, the single is a livid slice of jangly-goth rock, underlined with krautrock groove, L.A Witch's latest conjuration is almost paradoxical to the sunny warm times that we're facing, right now. If you're missing those days of rain-splashed pavements in the glacial autumnal evenings, then this one's certainly for you.
The accompanying video to the gloriously gloom-laden single is horror-movie-like, fittingly paying homage to the cult classic silent Danish-Swedish horror movie Häxan.
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