Our roundup of essential new releases, also featuring Natalie Wildgoose, The Null Club, First Day of Spring and Hemi Hemingway.
Photo: Sasha Eisner | Words: Isabel Kilevold, Brad Sked, Hazel Blacher
Radio Free Alice – 'Rule 31'
Radio Free Alice carve tension into melody on 'Rule 31'. Since forming in 2020, the Melbourne/Naarm-based four-piece have traced a sharp ascent through the indie rock scene, culminating in a breakout in 2025 with sold-out headline shows and a forthcoming run supporting Geese across Australia. From the opening guitar grit, slicing through the mix with deliberate edge, to Noah Learmont's raw, restrained vocals – now unmistakably central to the band's identity – 'Rule 31' thrums with restless momentum. A bassline of piercing precision anchors the arrangement, steering the guitar's sleek melody with unwavering control, while pulsing drums shift between urgency and stability, pushing the track forward. Dissonant riffs twist into infectious melodies, forging a post-punk sound alive with both vulnerability and edge. Radio Free Alice balance cool detachment with tremoring confession, revealing a tension that makes 'Rule 31' feel both laced with intent and emotionally unguarded. This is a glimpse of a band on the cusp of something bigger. (Isabel Kilevold)
Cardinals – 'Barbed Wire'
'Barbed Wire' resists the simplicity of a love letter or a break-up note; it reveals raw flashes of vulnerability and lived memory drawn from Cork's own past. Ahead of their debut album 'Masquerade' - out 13 February via So Young Records - Cardinals descend into a haze where intoxicated euphoria and friction intertwine. An eerie bass undercurrent weaves through the track, while pleading percussion drives the distorted guitar. Euan Manning's vocals cut through with an honesty that makes each admission land harder: "And love I deem as good / In all the ways I wish you would". The accordion breathes intimacy into the melody, lingering between comfort and strain, adding a tactile warmth to the arrangement. Drawing on gothic shoegaze, the raw honesty of Irish folk tradition, and the grit of post-punk, the Cork five-piece forge a sound distinctly their own. Ritualistic repetition holds the track together, echoing the cyclical tensions at its core. Each phrase is shaped with careful melodic control, letting the imagery surface without forcing it. The line "I can hardly breathe" is exhaled with restraint. With 'Barbed Wire', Cardinals fuse tenderness with turmoil, love and addiction bleeding into one. Memory shadows the melody, every note carrying the heart and gravel that runs through Cork's streets. (Isabel Kilevold)
Natalie Wildgoose – 'In The North'
Part Yorkshire, part London-based artist Natalie Wildgoose has returned with new single 'In The North', released via state51. A haunting spectre of lo-fi folk, 'In The North' is a beguilingly lovely offering from Natalie Wildgoose, a track that echoes the likes of Vashti Bunyan and the early catalogue of Angel Olsen. Recorded in a remote chapel in Yorkshire, 'In The North' possesses a warmth and cosiness that would be the perfect soundtrack to these bracing winter evenings, perched by a log fire in a rustic country pub. A glorious new release from one of the most exciting new acts right now, 'In The North' rightfully places Natalie Wildgoose at the forefront of our radar as an artist to keep our eye on in the future. (Brad Sked)
The Null Club – 'Overgrown (feat. Miss Grit)'
The Null Club - aka Alan Duggan-Borges of Gilla Band - has returned with the first new material since his eponymous debut EP was released in April this year. Set to be self-released on a limited run of 100 12" singles, splintering new cut 'Overgrown' sees the Dublin artist teaming up with Miss Grit for a chest-pummeling insurrection of thunderous, experimental club extravagance. A six minute crescendo of booming techno, 'Overgrown' systematically untethers itself of any inhibition in place of all out propulsive hedonism. Its grooves are lacerated by a ruthless, fracturing noise that draws you deep into a foggy, debaucherous unknown, a hazy half-light under an oscillation of strobes. 'Overgrown' was a track born from a fascination with the iconic 909 kick drum: "The hypnotic but kind of punishing nature of a 909 kick drum is something I've always searched for in music", Duggan-Borges explains. "The studio where I write has some big big subs, so I would sit there for hours chasing the full sound of those drums. That was the starting point of this track". (Hazel Blacher)
First Day Of Spring – 'PARTYZEIT!'
London outfit First Day Of Spring have arrived, unleashing their groove-loaded psychedelic disco to the world on new single 'PARTYZEIT!'. Opening with a Gary Numan-esque trippy synth freakout, akin to an acid-laced playthrough of GTA Vice City wheeling back and forth down the beach boulevard, 'PARTYZEIT!' launches itself into a neon-tinted jubilee of psych-pop / new-wave greatness. In these gloomy times when the world can seem eternally doleful, First Day Of Spring provide a much needed tonic, and 'PARTYZEIT!' is a sonic rally against the doom scroll in favour of the freedom and lightness of the party. First Day Of Spring have also shared a video alongside this weird, wonderful banger of a single. (Brad Sked)
Hemi Hemingway – 'Oh, My Albertine'
Swedish imprint PNKSLM are perhaps better known for their heavier, more raucous offerings, yet their latest release 'Oh, My Albertine' sits in stark contrast to the frenzied sonic rippers that have previously dominated their catalogue. A celestial heartbreak ballad from New Zealand artist Hemi Hemingway, the track is a grand, noir-like spaghetti western affair - Americana-meets-country that revels in the romantic. Collaborating with Flying Nun Records' Verra Allen, the duet delightfully unite for rich, heavenly harmonies. Hemingway's melancholic wonder wouldn't be out of place soundtracking a cinematic art-house epic; grief-ridden pilgrimages across stark desert sunsets; ambling from town to town on horseback in search of whiskey-stocked taverns' dazzling illuminations. (Brad Sked)
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