Essential new music from The New Eves, Tummyache, Voka Gentle, GARDENS, Broadsheets and CIVIL PARTNERSHIP.
The New Eves by Katie Silvester | Words: A.L. Noonan, Hazel Blacher, Lloyd Bolton
This week's essential new music includes the announcement of The New Eves' debut album and a fresh single from Viennese quartet GARDENS, along with tracks from Tummyache, Voka Gentle, Broadsheets and Civil Partnership.
The New Eves – 'The New Eve' / 'Rivers Run Red'
To view the landscape of contemporary British music and overlook the pawprint of folk is to ignore a key cultural moment. While the 2010s were peppered with the jolts and whines of post-punk revivalism, the 2020s have seen diverse new acts ingesting the forms and aesthetics of traditional folk and repurposing them into something wholly new, open and progressive. The New Eves are, in every way, a defining act of this movement. Returning with equal amounts daring and drive, the Brighton folk-rock quartet have unearthed their latest double single 'The New Eve/Rivers Run Red', announcing their long-anticipated debut album 'The New Eve Is Rising' in tandem, to be released this August via Transgressive. The two tracks are an uninhibited manifesto, pairing moaning cello drones and coursing guitars with twinkling piano and defiant verse that calls on us to reject the yolk of religion in its crude efforts to simultaneously trample and regulate femininity. The New Eve is rising, join or be left behind. (A.L. Noonan)
Tummyache – 'Stop, Drop, Roll'
Suffusing the unfettered abrasiveness of gritty, grungy DIY rock against a starkly fragile singer-songwriter rawness akin to the likes of Adrienne Lenker, 'Stop, Drop, Roll' is a confronting and impassioned reintroduction to Tummyache, who reemerge with their first single since 2024 album 'Egosystem'. No strangers to emotionally weighty or political subject matter, the new track from the four-piece, fronted by enigmatic vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Soren Bryce, challenges the abuses of power and subsequent societal imbalances caused by the likes of "big government and big corporations". The repeated titular line, "stop, drop, roll", is both an admission and call to arms from Bryce, self-examining why the urge to "panic" and "freak out" often eclipses the benefits and challenges that "organising and articulating myself against these powers as best I can" poses. (Hazel Blacher)
Voka Gentle – 'Creon I'
Opening with thick, iridescent sawtooth synths that hark back to that iconic 90s THX sound they used to blast out in cinemas before the film started, on their latest transmission 'Creon I', Voka Gentle recline back our seats, dim the lights and fire up the projectors for a theatrical blast of outlandish avant-indie that spirals with a wild-eyed, tyrannical eccentricity. Marking their return with the first solo cut since their glisteringly idiosyncratic sophomore album 'WRITHING!' back in 2021, the new track sees the genre-bending trio draw lyrical inspiration from the star-studded halls of Greek tragedy. The scene is set at the eponymous Creon's jubilant coronation following the mutilation/exile of incestuous Oedipus, and Voka Gentle say they are "still bitterly divided" on whether the track is "a gloat to Oedipus or questioning the punishment when Creon asks, "What d'you do that for?". Splicing stomping industrial drums with astrally-charged synth pop psychedelia and an unsettling onslaught of distorted, stream-of-consciousness vocals, 'Creon I' is a thrilling reintroduction to the colourful world of Voka Gentle. (Hazel Blacher)
GARDENS – 'Good This Way'
With dreamy vocals reminiscent of the likes of Goldfrapp and Unloved, recalling the addictive desperation of Korder Korda's recent single 'What Have You Done', 'Good This Way' sees GARDENS set the scene before taking us on an enchanting journey, all spaced-out and sparkling. Scenes flash by, painted vibrant and diverse by candy-coloured synths and hook-filled vocals while the pulse swells and calms unpredictably. Hot off the heels of their debut album 'Flaws', the new single from the Vienna four-piece arrives ahead of the band's first ever UK shows next week at The Great Escape. (Lloyd Bolton)
Broadsheets – 'Birch Tree (Serenade)'
Swirling and throbbing comes the latest release from Bristol's Broadsheets. Blending space and density with angular chops and stutters, 'Birch Tree (Serenade)' establishes Broadsheets as one of the Lords/Baronesses-in-waiting to the throne of post-rock that has laid stagnant and derivative for so long. Billowing basslines and Slint-flecked guitars whirl between each other in 7/8 time, equal parts unsettling and enthralling, before bright vocals build over a tide of chattering drums and rising distortion. While cheaper acts would give into the minor excitement of a building crescendo with a timely 'drop', Broadsheets pull back with held chords and splashy broad drum strokes. An experiment in anticipation, a metered duel between tension and release, Broadsheets are without a doubt one of the most interesting and exciting groups around at the minute. (A. L. Noonan)
CIVIL PARTNERSHIP – 'Icarus'
As if swirling unobtrusively through the warm, shadowy corners of a darkened crowd, CIVIL PARTNERSHIP's 'Icarus' broods at life's wistful intermission where actions flicker ahead in slow-motion, seeping into memories like silent, glossy tears. Following a shakeup of their members over the last year and a subsequent regeneration as a four piece, the latest single from the London quartet tinges their noisy art rock sound with a newly honed tenderness and folk sentimentality. At first the track is led by a lone, wafting bassline, and, guided by lead singer Jack George Smith's intimate vocal and a whisper of brushed drums swaying beneath, delicate choral hums and airy, sweeping string legatos drift 'Icarus' reflectively towards its final, understated crescendo. (Hazel Blacher)
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