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Manchester

Burgaboy Lit Up the Luxe Life by Turning Drill, Grime, Garage and Bassline into a Summer Clubland Detonation with ‘Champagne and Restaurants’

Posted on 25 May 2026

After refusing to stylistically restrict his sound, Manchester’s Burgaboy has stormed from strength to strength, reaching his hard-hitting zenith with Champagne and Restaurants, a kinetic drop determined to send dancefloors into overload. Before Bassline became his language, hip-hop and R&B shaped his early world; one Manchester party shifted the frequency, and once the code clicked, he turned that energy into movement.

Champagne and Restaurants rampages through the intersections of drill, grime, garage, and Bassline, with bouncy techno-tinted happy hardcore elements acting as the catalyst of the anthem, which exhibits Burgaboy’s chameleonically expansive vocal range. From spitting tongue-in-cheek emcee vocal hooks to harmonising to bring soul into the mix, Burgaboy knows exactly how to make his hits high-octane in the most hedonically kinetic way possible.

The strobes of heat through Champagne and Restaurants against the sticky-sweet licks of lust make it the ultimate bass-heavy summer hit.

His vision now reaches beyond club edits and one-off moments. Burgaboy is building full Bassline bodies of work with the ambition to push the sound into album territory, treating it as a world-class force rather than a regional footnote. Manchester raised him, resilience sharpened him, and Bassline gave him the flag to raise.

Champagne and Restaurants is now available to stream on all major platforms, including SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

The Virginmarys – White Knuckle Riding (Alt Version): Neo-Classical Indie Post-Rock Anti-Gospel

Posted on 7 May 2026

Inhibition has never been a part of the Virginmarys’ sound, but with the release of the alternative version of White Knuckle Riding, a fan favourite from their last LP, The House Beyond the Fires, they stripped themselves bare of amplification, taking listeners back to the urgency behind the agonising lyricism.

The opening piano sequence flows in the same vein as a sombre accompaniment to a pious procession before Ally’s vocals are exhibited at their most ethereal to date, blurring into the reverb and illuminating the single that stands as a testament to the duo’s self-produced sound. It doesn’t take long before you’re sure you’re going to feel bruises crawling up your heartstrings after hitting play. After you have felt the first sonic spectres of melodic morosity creep around you, you’ll still be broadsided by the disarmingly affecting vocal inflections in the first verse as they pour like a desperate plea from inside a Catholic confession box.

The ornately celestial piano-driven release lashes out against genre constraints as much as it asserts anger in the face of the insistence of existential suffering, forced upon the too self-aware, who are destined to ruminate in the obscure expectation to be happy in the true emptiness of reality. There are neo-classical shades drawn around nuances of post-rock, perfected with a Pixies-esque iridescent buzzsaw riff to close out the triumphant chameleonic shift.  Without the Zeus-esque drums, the elasticity of the tensile howls, and the swagger-driven breakdowns that feel like getting caught in a rockslide of riffs and cacophonically cadenced percussion, nothing that the Virginmarys have become synonymous with is lost.

When bands switch up their sound, it’s natural for the core of what they were previously perceived to be to become distorted, but the rework of White Knuckle Riding proves that the crux of the Virginmarys (and the reason they’re practically radiating with reverence through the rock community these days) has always been their raw augmented purges of emotion that are too visceral to keep caged inside the mind. Behind the razor-sharp songwriting chops and anthemic dualistic synergy which sparks between Ally Dickaty (Vocals, Guitars, Songwriter, Producer) and Danny Dolan (Drums, Visual Architect) on stage and on record is the real reason why they have so much international crossover appeal as an independent duo operating out of Macclesfield, UK.

Every new progression in White Knuckle Riding seems to make a new cut and tear through some metaphysical space within you as you’re forced to confront the existential harrow of a mind too disillusioned to find any form of sanctuary, setting the tone for the upcoming Beyond the House of Fires LP, which is now available on pre-order.

Stream the official music video on YouTube.

Vote for the Virginmarys to become this week’s Classic Rock Track of the Week: Voting closes at 11 PM, May 10th.

Head to the Virginmarys’ official website to pre-order the Beyond the Houe of Fires LP, book tickets to their 2026 tour dates, and to link up with them on all major social and streaming platforms.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Methyl Orange Fixed a Krautrock Gaze on the Sick Collective Psyche in ‘Important Things’

Posted on 30 March 2026
Important Things EP by Methyl Orange

Methyl Orange has launched a synthwave meditation with Important Things that, if everyone got caught in the tides simultaneously, tomorrow would be a very different day. The Manchester project of sonic architect Nick Wall has spent years building immersive instrumental worlds, and this release sharpens that vision into something pointedly humanistic. Since 2017, Wall has steadily grown a dedicated following through a prolific catalogue, with 2025’s Lost for Words drawing strong praise, before 2026 opened with a top-three placing in the Radio Wigwam Awards’ Best Electro Act category. Important Things feels like another decisive step forward.

Advocating for empathy, equality, and compassion rarely translates into a hypnotically stylised sonic experience that leaves you increasingly arrested, but this cinematic feat of expansively stylised electronica is no ordinary strain of synthesised fare.

The cinematic scope is panoramic as Methyl Orange delivers spoken-word mantras over cold cosmic synths that nod to krautrock’s pioneers while keeping their gaze fixed on rectifying the sick collective psyche of the present, an individualised navel-gazing downward spiral race to the top. There’s power in the softly spoken repetition, in the slow unfurling tension, in the way the track holds its nerve and lets the message land without dressing it up in cheap sentiment. John Cooper Clarke and Kraftwerk alike would approve of this message.

Important Things is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify and Bandcamp.
Review by Amelia Vandergast

 Manchester’s Mat Thorpe Confronts Widespread Malaise in the Sermonic Dark-Folk Reckoning of ‘Jaded’

Posted on 20 March 2026
Mat Thorpe

As a fledgling goth coming of age in Manchester, fellow native Mat Thorpe appeared more as a monolith than a cornerstone in the city’s scene. His presence behind the decks at goth nights and his performances with The March Violets and Isolation/Division kept the alternative undercurrent vital, alive, and reverent to Manchester’s post-punk legacy. That lineage runs deep, and now, writing and performing under his own name as a solo dark-folk spectre on the airwaves, Thorpe is summoning sermonic atmospheres entrenched with ritualistic energy and iconography.

His seminal piece, Jaded, stands as a hymnal intersection between post-punk influence and pagan folklore. The track addresses widespread malaise through vivid imagery that flashes past you while you are harbingered away from letting apathy swallow you whole. There is something almost liturgical in the pacing as the instrumentation draws from traditional folk textures while allowing cinematic shadows to gather at the edges, reflecting both Manchester’s industrial ghosts and Thorpe’s own lived past.

The final crescendo is the epitome of an aural reckoning. That symphonic visualisation of overcoming adversity to find the light lands as a broadsiding cinematic touch, promising far more as Thorpe continues to explore his talent in uncharted territory. For those who hold New Model Army close to the soul and playlists alike, Jaded feels like an ethereal awakening rooted in grounded conviction.

Jaded is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Bandcamp. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

 

The Empty Page pulled a male gaze blinder with their latest single, A Feminine Ending

Posted on 19 March 2026

For their latest anything but pedestrian release, A Feminine Ending, the Manchester-based trio, The Empty Page, initiated by doctoring the wooziness of Pavement around their unmistakably rhythmic alt-indie signature aesthetic before descending into proof hell hath no fury like a woman diminished based on how many trips she’s had around the sun.

After seeing the pre-release hype for A Feminine Ending, which follows hot on the heels of Death on Our Side and When We Gonna Run?, the languid tempo lands as a subversive curveball. Yet as you lean into the post-punk melancholy twisting through the angular guitar notes, harbingering basslines, and cymbals smashing like splintered glass, it becomes undeniable that the melodic medium serves as the perfect conduit of the lament on how divine femininity has an expiration date scribed on their faces by those who fetishise teen bodies.

The refrain of “one day, you start to disappear” couldn’t hit harder, cutting straight through anyone who understands that invisibility is far from a superpower in a world that dictates visibility equals worth. The spoken-word lash-out against hypersexualisation, the commodification of insecurity, and the relentless expectation placed on women to appease the male gaze lands with the same ferocity as the descent into no-wave instrumental carnage that the single was always secretly, seamlessly building to.

The Empty Page has spent over a decade sharpening their voice around women’s rights and cultural critique, and here, they carry feminist sonic fury into the fourth wave, honouring riot grrrl while delivering the punk-pinched artistic alchemics of Fontaines D.C.  If there were any justice in the industry, a slice of Fontaines’ reverence would already be theirs.

A Feminine Ending is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Photo by Debbie Ellis

Swap Fairylights for Strobe Lights with Rick Holden’s Latest Mix, Hardstyle Christmas

Posted on 16 December 2025

Manchester producer Rick Holden wished his followers a very Hardstyle Christmas with a high-octane seasonal riot that tears away from polite festive playlists. Across this hardstyle mash-up of tongue-in-cheek house and techno, he lines up kicks and synths to get your heart thudding in sync with explosively energetic beats. Forget archetypal Christmas singles; who genuinely needs another saccharine sleigh bell-heavy track that reeks of desperation to claw its way to Christmas number one?

Hardstyle Christmas exemplifies Holden’s ethos as a producer who lives, breathes and bleeds hardstyle, yet still has time for a cheeky wink at the sillier side of the season. If you are the kind of raver who would happily switch fairylights for strobe lights and the King’s speech for filthy bursts of bass, Hardstyle Christmas digs deep under the skin, especially when the drops tumble in like a rave siren call for the misfits who treat Boxing Day as recovery day. It is the sound of tinsel getting ripped down in favour of laser beams and fog machines.

Holden has roots in Droylsden on the Manchester map, where he first started sketching out tunes on home computers in the early 90s before graduating to a Roland XP50 and Cubase, then on to DAWs stacked with modern plugins. Across his catalogue, he toys with dance, trance and hardstyle, folding them into uplifting, melodic, high-energy cuts that carry a proper cinematic streak.

You can hear a sideways nod to the Euro-dance titans he grew up on, from Cappella and Sash! to Scooter and Harris & Ford, though Hardstyle Christmas feels wired to his own instinct for euphoria. The track works as a seasonal in-joke and as a peak-time weapon, perfect for anyone who wants their December soundtracked by kicks and synths instead of crooners and choirs.

Hardstyle Christmas is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Blvck Toxxine channelled collective burnout into post-hardcore catharsis

Posted on 7 November 2025

Blvck Toxxine used their debut single, Out of Time, to protest against the pressure-cooker nature of reality, where exploring and living autonomy has become a luxury. The frustration within the collective sense of exhaustion runs deep in the gnarled veins of the Manchester-based melodic metal outfit’s seminal track. Through gutturally tensile slams of bass strings, an all-out skin-beating assault, and distorted, friction-fuelled guitars, Blvck Toxxine delivered a visceral release that feels like a scream against existence itself.

Symphonic glimpses of redemption bleed through the electronic synthetics, which cascade into post-hardcore glitched-out disassociation. The juggernautical earworm visualises the exhaustion of knowing you’re wearing someone else’s skin just to survive. With screamed vocals that match the unflinching ferocity of My Ruin, Poppy, and In This Moment, the band twists despair into defiant catharsis. The harmonic stretches don’t soothe so much as sanctify, creating a sense of salvation in the noise.

Led by Jane Lacey, the Manchester-born project merges djent, experimental electronics and emotional confrontation into a sound that embodies the corrosion and resilience of modern mental strain. Thematically, Out of Time reflects the fight to exist under the suffocating metric of self-improvement, where even healing feels commodified. Rather than surrender to the static of the world, Blvck Toxxine weaponises it, ripping through toxic expectations to find oxygen on the other side of anguish. For a band so steeped in chaos, their clarity hits harder than any distortion pedal could.

Out of Time is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.
Review by Amelia Vandergast

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BABY B spilt spirals of distortion and dream pop etherealism in her seminal single, Because

Posted on 30 September 2025
BABY

BABY B will turn rhythmic pulses inside out with her seminal single, Because. The way the shoegazey oscillations in the intro spiral into alt-indie distortion before moody synths and glassy 80s-esque harmonies cut through locks you into the vignette of a mind unspooling. Before a single lyric is relayed, the atmosphere has already atomised the senses. When the words arrive, they blur confession with disorientation, weighing the fine line between affection and affliction until it becomes impossible to separate the two.

The crossover magnetism is undeniable. The former dance-pop artist has thrown herself into one of the most essential alt-indie releases of the year, one that could be devoured by mainstream pop listeners while still holding enough etherealism to draw in dream pop devotees. It’s a rare synthesis, proof that the alt and pop worlds need not run in parallel when one artist can hold them both in the palm of her hand.

Behind BABY is Manchester-born songwriter Sarah Blanchard, who has spent over a decade writing hits for other artists, her pen fuelling tracks that have collectively amassed over a billion streams. With long-term collaborator Richard Boardman, formerly of Delphic, she has built a cinematic yet intimate sonic world that feels like a long-overdue arrival of her own alchemy. Released through AWAL, Because is only the beginning; the industry would be skewed beyond reason if 2025 didn’t see BABY ascend to the recognition she so clearly deserves.

Because is now available on all major streaming platforms.

Follow BABY B on TikTok and Instagram to stay up to date with all her latest releases.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Manchester’s new indie rock powerhouse lit up the scene with ‘Something More’

Posted on 28 September 2025

Whether or not there was room for a new band of prodigal indie rock sons in Manchester, The Streetlights stormed in regardless with their debut single, Something More. With a little less swagger and snarl than your average Madchester outfit, The Streetlights refused to rely on hands-tied-behind-back bravado. They didn’t sink sardonic postured angst into their inaugural track; instead, they let their guitar strings and heartstrings find an affecting synergy in the track that writhes like a hybrid born between the emotive hypersonic intensity of Muse, the stylistic indie chops of Catfish and the Bottlemen, and the raw dejection of Fontaines DC.

As the lyrics write new romantic existential philosophy, it’s likely that The Streetlights will find the ‘more’ they’re lyrically searching for; and that will come in the form of rapturous applause from across the industry. Discernibly, they’re built for more than the venues up and down Oldham Street, and we’ve no doubt they’ll reach it if their sophomore proves even more mettle.

Something More is now available on all major streaming platforms via this link.

Review by Amelia Vandergast