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Industrial Synth-Pop Siren, Chayne, Delivered a High-Voltage Rush of Earworm Appeal with ‘Quicksilver’

Posted on 3 February 2025

In Chayne’s latest single, Quicksilver, synth-pop and industrial rock cataclysmically collide, allowing the 17-year-old UK-born, Southern France residing artist to stake a claim as one of the most revolutionary acts on the scene. Since picking up music production in 2020, she’s refined a sound that thrives on unrelenting intensity and razor-sharp focus.

The ragged basslines and snarled guitar riffs grind against the pulsating synths in Quicksilver, creating a sonic collision that feels as visceral as it is danceable. Meanwhile, the snapping backbeat fuels the momentum, driving the track’s adrenaline-fuelled heartbeat. Fans of Shiny Toy Guns and similarly chaotic synth-pop acts will find themselves at home in its oscillating chaos.

Chayne’s vocals cut through the dynamic storm like a scalpel—cold, direct, and almost animatronic in their unflinchingly convictive delivery. Every syllable lands with calculated precision, anchoring the track’s high-octane energy in unapologetically scathed intensity without sacrificing clarity.

If you want to put your rhythmic pulses through their paces, this single delivers all the raw voltage and unflinching rhythm needed to find your body beat.

Stream Quicksilver on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

William Hut’s ‘River’s Flood’: A Sonic Embrace in the Wake of Pain

Posted on 2 February 2025

With River’s Flood, singer-songwriter William Hut finds a place in the same pantheon as Fleet Foxes and Paul Simon for his ability to go beyond storytelling. His lyrics don’t just narrate; they carry the power to speak a thousand words through each uniquely presented vocal line. By leaning into the power of metaphor, Hut consoles his listeners, offering affirmation that life exists beyond the pain and that feeling broken isn’t a life sentence.

The instrumental arrangement is just as artful as his lyrics, as William Hut proves himself an artist capable of abstracting his listeners from material reality. Through hypnotic rhythms and melodies, he transports them into an aurally carved nirvana. The tantalising time signatures ripple through neo-classical strings, which embellish the release with ornate grace. Meanwhile, the reverb ebbs and flows over the synapses, creating an otherworldly experience that makes the weight of the everyday feel like less of a battle.

Hailing from Bergen, Norway, Hut’s latest single reflects his introspection and resilience, themes that have been present throughout his career. As a Norwegian Grammy-winning artist with his band, Poor Rich Ones, and a solo discography decorated with gold and platinum success, Hut has consistently redefined indie pop. Tracks such as Take It Easy have placed him firmly on the global map, and River’s Flood continues that legacy, consoling listeners with a vivid reminder that even the deepest scars can transform into strength.

Stream the official music video for River’s Flood on YouTube now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Northern Lights of Love: Francesca Pichierri’s ‘Sperarci Due Eroi’

Posted on 31 January 2025
Francesca Pichierri

Francesca Pichierri’s latest single, Sperarci Due Eroi (Hoping We Are Two Heroes), instantly reels you in with stabbing piano chords that drip baroque beguile into a cabaret-pop-style ballad. But the true power lies in Francesca Pichierri’s ethereal harmonies that take hold before the track ramps up to anthemic intensity. Even as the crescendo builds and the track teeters on the brink of chaos, she maintains a gracefully composed command over every element of the instrumentation. If you’ve ever wondered what art pop perfection sounds like, all you need to do is hit play on this cultivated evocation of pure emotion.

The bilingual vocals add another dimension to the track, which never veers into histrionics; instead, it leans in, deeper and deeper into aural cinema. The looming piano anchors the soundscape with weight and inevitability, its resonant tones underscoring the gravity of the themes, while the shimmering electronic layers and visceral rock elements carry the emotional tension to its breaking point.

As part of her upcoming concept album, Cellule Stronze, this release narrates her mother’s battle with ovarian cancer. Pichierri stitches themes of heroism and resilience into the fabric of the music, transforming the Northern Lights into a poignant metaphor for enduring love and courage. It’s a heart-wrenching yet empowering exploration of love’s ability to sustain and protect, even when the path ahead is shrouded in uncertainty.

Stream ‘Sperarci Due Eroi’ on all major platforms, including Spotify, from January 31st.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

A Liminal Light: Laurent Iacomucci’s Entrancing EDM score, ‘Monsters’, Defies the Darkness

Posted on 31 January 2025
Laurent Iacomucci

From the first tentatively diaphanous chords in Laurent Iacomucci’s entrancing EDM score, Monsters, you’re submerged into reflective submission. When the ethereal vocals enter and bleed even more emotion into the evocatively structured arrangement, your soul would have to be defunct not to feel the weight of the release, which lightens with the first iridescent build in the EDM pop production.

By choosing nuance over extremes, Laurent Iacomucci visualises the concept that we’re all trailed by shadows which haunt us, but what truly matters is whether we accept them and confront them instead of living a life of introspective persecution.

As the first single from the Luxembourg-based artist and producer’s debut LP, Chasing Monsters, ‘Monsters’ sets the tone for a collection of tracks that explores the universality of the struggles we face, the shadows we chase, and the hope that keeps us moving forward.

The emotional potency in ‘Monsters’ resonates through the subtle ebb and flow of the melodic transitions, making it impossible to ignore the confessional quality that underpins each verse and build.

Monsters will be available to stream on all major platforms from January 31st. Find your preferred way to listen via this link.

Follow Laurent Iacomucci on Instagram to stay up to date with all their latest releases.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Dizzy Panda blasted into space with their bass house hit, Astronaut ft Major Orbit

Posted on 31 January 2025

In an industry-quaking collaboration, Dizzy Panda teamed up with Major Orbit to drop an interstellar track that allows the bass to hit hard enough to knock the bass house scene off its axis. The juggernautical dub-heavy drops match the intensity of the ensnaring vocals as they run through reprises until the track reaches a frenetically broadsiding middle eight that allows chaos to reign.

The beauty in Astronaut lies within how Dizzy Panda use their grit and high-octane ferocity with their devil-may-care charisma, giving the track a tongue-in-cheek feel which is matched by the official music video that proves there are few better purveyors of vibe-driven, bass-drenched euphoria.

Dizzy Panda, an unsigned DJ and producer duo from Haarlem, The Netherlands, refuse to stick to one genre by synthesising Old-School House, Tech House, Techno, and Bass House influences. Like all pandas, they have a dark side too. Astronaut, their first single from the new album, dives back onto the dancefloor with an interstellar groove that was, by their own admission, a surprise discovery while they were working on something else. Bassheads will naturally treat this track as a product of divine intervention.

The official music video for Astronaut will premiere on January 31st; catch it on YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

PoST’s All My Faults Puts Nostalgia in a New Frame

Posted on 30 January 2025

PoST’s standout single, All My Faults, from their third LP, Ten Little Indies, is a testament to the band’s enduring ability to reinvent themselves while staying rooted in their unmistakable sound. With a subtle nod to 80s nostalgia and an undercurrent of suave Italian soul, the track offers a romantically artful sonic sonnet that seems to float through time rather than follow the breadcrumbs of modernism. There’s an undeniable magnetism in the track’s deliberate retreat into tradition, yet it manages to punctuate its narrative with innovative flourishes, crafting an atmosphere that’s daringly cathartic.

When the theremin’s ethereal timbres emerge in the middle eight, stretching across tantalising time signatures, it feels as though the song is gently bending the listener’s perception of time and space. This bold instrumentation choice punctuates the track’s lush arrangement, showcasing PoST’s skill in infusing melancholy into melody.

After the members of PoST put their musing minds together in 2001 in the Turin music scene, where their evocative lyrics and minimal arrangements first carved out their niche, the line-up may have changed, but the creative spirit endured with Daniele Maresca’s synthesisers and pianos shaping a new sonic path. Ten Little Indies, recorded at Real Sound Studio in Milan and mixed in London by Pietro Cavassa, encapsulates this evolution.

Stream Ten Little Indies on Spotify now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Six Eight’s ‘Emperors of Pain’: A Razor-Wire Soundtrack for a Fractured World

Posted on 27 January 2025

Six Eight’s title track from their freshly launched Emperors of Pain EP is an unforgiving fuzz-drenched inferno that scorches with unrelenting distortion and snarling, sardonic vocal venom. This alternative rock trio—formed in 2023 and straddling Sweden and the UK stepped into the no-wave arena and ground it underfoot, blending garage rock tones with grunge-soaked abrasion.

Darren Lynch (bass, vocals), Cormac Stokes (drums, vocals), and Pete Uglow (guitar, piano, vocals) are no strangers to capturing visceral chaos. Their first album, World Isn’t Ending, recorded at Brighton’s Third Circle Recordings, was an eclectic storm of reflective piano-driven darkness, Clash-inspired rawness, and Dinosaur Jr-style crunch. On Emperors of Pain, the trio amplifies their sonic ferocity while tethering their sound to personal and political undercurrents.

Rarely content to tread softly, Six Eight revels in jagged hooks and a guttural energy that thrives on dynamism. The five tracks on the EP carve through themes of corruption, lies, and digital despair, tempered only by glimpses of hope rooted in friendship and commitment. On the title track, the band’s feral intensity collides with moments of careful, almost sinister, restraint, proving their ability to twist chaos into something magnetic.

The new revolution in alt-rock begins here. Dive in on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Tempus Cucumis reached the epitome of cutting-edge with their prog-rock tour de force, The Axe Drops

Posted on 24 January 2025

Tempus Cucumis have sharpened their classically-trained chops once again for ‘The Axe Drops’, a six-minute tempestuous slice of prog-rock featuring the mesmerising jazz-tinged vocal talent of Anne-Lien. As an extended adaptation of the track that first appeared on their 2021 experimental demo album Mini Mouton—a prog soundtrack to the 1926 silent film Ménilmontant—the single transcends its cinematic roots and evolves into something far more colossal.

Crafted by the formidable duo Jeroen De Brauwer (guitars, drums, composition) and Lukas Huisman (keys, production), the single builds on their signature style of seamlessly balancing storm and stillness. The quiet, reflective interludes, where guitar and keys take centre stage, are fraught with tension, leaving you holding your breath for the monolithic crescendos of doom-laden riffs and symphonic flourishes.

These climaxes pulverise, especially when Anne-Lien’s ethereal vocals sweep in as an arresting juxtaposition to the hostility which breeds in the ferocity of the heavier sections which will leave fans of prog and post-rock slack-jawed. It’s the band’s deft ability to maintain captivation even in the stripped-back moments that make The Axe Drops a triumphant tour de force. The polished production ensures every note feels deliberate, every beat intentional, and every shift monumental.

As Tempus Cucumis work towards their eighth album, this single not only pays homage to their roots but also cements their status as titans of atmospheric innovation. The album artwork, a painting by Giorgi, is a fitting visual companion to a track that feels as vivid as it sounds.

Stream The Axe Drops on Spotify now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Roll up to the Big Top with Dirty Feetz’ carnivalesque take on Avant-Garde alt-rock absurdity ‘Tampone’

Posted on 23 January 2025

Hit play on Dirty Feetz’ seminal single, Tampone, and prepare for a tsunami of electrifying absurdity to knock you sideways. The track, pulled from their debut LP Flip Flops, is a sonic rebellion that obliterates conventions.

Dirty Feetz riff to their own rulebook-free rhythm, borrowing from Funk, Dub, Psychedelic Rock, and beyond to claim the title of this generation’s answer to Frank Zappa. The band rejects ego in favour of raw, liberated creativity, allowing the alchemy of their sound to transcend mere genre fusion. It’s impossible not to draw parallels to the zany carnivalesque energy of Mr Bungle, with the flamboyant flair running rampant through every corner of Tampone.

Dirty Feetz’s ethos is simple: they’re here to tickle synapses and get feet moving. Their tracks don’t just tell surreal stories; they take listeners on unexpected detours through a jungle of musical influences, embracing the strange and the silly along the way. Known for their energetic live shows complete with costumes and madcap antics, they invite you to leave the mundane behind and revel in their whirling dervish of sound.

Tampone is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify, with the rest of the debut LP from Dirty Feetz.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Preaching to the Converted: Nicco Lupen’s ‘Sunday at Church’ Reimagines Worship on the Dancefloor

Posted on 22 January 2025

Nicco Lupen’s latest single, ‘Sunday at Church’, doesn’t just bring beats to the congregation—it delivers the gospel of tech house with an intricately cultivated sense of purpose.

Hailing from Italy and now based in Prague, Lupen has carved his reputation on grooved-out rhythms, deep basslines, and euphoric melodies, earning recognition on platforms such as Spotify, SoundCloud, and Beatport. But with this release, he transcends the archetypes of house music by imbuing his production with a soul-affirming euphoria that hits deeper than the average dancefloor anthem.

By swathing his pulsating rhythms in sermonic samples, Lupen invites listeners to experience the transcendence of music as energy. It’s a far cry from the hand claps and foot stomps referenced in the samples, which bring the rhythm to church, but the mix is sanctifying sonic scripture all the same. Lupen wrote a New Testament by blurring the lines between sacred spaces and late-night clubs. The vocal outpours contextualise the track beyond its beats, urging reflections on how rhythm and ritual connect people across all walks of life.

The call to communion challenges the predictable structures of tech house and carves a cerebral edge into its hypnotic progressions. Nicco Lupen’s ability to bridge soulful introspection with dancefloor ecstasy solidifies his position as a standout in the electronic scene.

Sunday at Church is now available to stream on all major platforms via this link.

Review by Amelia Vandergast