Browsing Tag

Protest Music

Troubadour of political folk tragedies, Ken Newman, soulfully sirened whiskey-soaked truth in ‘Who Are the Bad Guys’

Posted on 15 July 2026

When Ken Newman sings, he mesmerises. You could hear a pin drop from the next room when you absorb yourself into his humble masterstrokes, and his latest single, Who Are the Bad Guys, carries that same arresting emotional gravity. Across Latin-inspired, finger-picked acoustic guitar, within a warm, timbre-rich production, he summons poetic introspective wisdom into the accordant atmosphere.

His life-worn, whiskey-soaked vocals evoke the same sensations as listening to Cat Stevens, Tom Waits and Townes Van Zandt, yet Newman’s phrasing belongs entirely to his own weathered conscience. Originally from San Francisco and now based much of the year in Zihuatanejo, he brings decades of storytelling, performance and creative direction into a song that examines power, inequality, propaganda and complicity with a steady hand.

Newman is one of the most criminally underrated political troubadours of our time. Socio-political tragedy finds devastating resonance through his voice, because he allows ambiguity, empathy and discomfort to alchemise. Instead of flattening the subject into sloganism, he lets the lyric turn the lens towards the systems around us and the parts of ourselves that keep them standing.

With the moral gravity of Leonard Cohen, the folk lineage of Bob Dylan and the atmospheric darkness of New Model Army, Who Are the Bad Guys cuts deep.

Who Are the Bad Guys is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Riot State’s America, The Ghost (Basement Demo) Brought Denver Punk to the Frontline of American Dissent

Posted on 29 June 2026

To the sound of sirens, America, The Ghost (Basement Demo) by Riot State is incited. The Denver punk band lashes against the violence, control and oppression inflicted upon the American masses with enough force to leave scars across the stoic gaze of the Statue of Liberty.

The track is a red-hot inferno of adrenaline as the punk ethos augments rhythmically high-octane rock; it is a landslide of rolling punches, making the anthem a feeding frenzy of volition. The riffs are wired to the picket line, every vocal strike hits like a body refusing another manufactured crisis, and the basement-demo rawness only sharpens the track’s urgency and importance.

Formed in late 2025, Riot State arrive with serious pedigree across Colorado’s music scene, featuring Ariadnee Ziady on lead guitar, Troy Ten Eyck on bass and Mitchel Paulson on vocals.

For Rage Against the Machine fans searching for contemporary protest voltage, Riot State sound ready to occupy the vanguard. With serious songwriting force hammering out a monolithic sign of the times, this is a protest picket that should send splinters through society.

America, The Ghost (Basement Demo) is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Lifeform Is That Hidden Promise Dragging Alt-Rock Rebellion Out of Its Borrowed Uniform

Posted on 16 June 2026

That Hidden Promise refused to rebel against hegemony while wearing anyone else’s uniform in Lifeform; rock and punk may be rife with refusals to fall in line, but not spotting the irony in how they are doing exactly that by emulating their pioneers and contemporaries is its own form of post-modern irony. That Hidden Promise, aka Wayne Lee, dropped an earworm that is as ready for stadiums as mainstream radio, shaking up the static in the same vein as Kula Shaker while delivering the same sticky-sweet protestive power as the Manic Street Preachers.

Lifeform leaves everything a little rough around the edges as a nod to the surge of authenticity following the proto-punk movement. As the lead single from the forthcoming second That Hidden Promise album, it calls for colour, connection and meaning inside systems designed to control, exploit and promote herd mentality. Written, mixed, mastered, programmed and performed entirely by Lee, the single carries its anti-conformist message through every self-made contour.

What will undoubtedly be one of the most kinetic singles of the year, Lifeform is almost scarily efficacious in its ability to convince you to shake off the pressure of conformity that weighs down your soul as you attempt to be the perfect conformist in a clusterfuck of an imperfect world. With the swagger of the alt-90s running right through the sun-bleached optics of the track, you can’t help but feel more carefree by the outro.

Lifeform is now available to stream on all major platforms via this link.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Drew David – Freedom: A Mystically Tribal Protest Sermon Dragged from the Swamp of American Turmoil

Posted on 24 February 2026
Drew David

Deliciously swampy, mystically tribal protest singles don’t come around too often, making Drew David’s latest single, Freedom, a necessary remedy to the exhaustion, anger and anxiety of watching America slip ever further from sanity.

Drew David used every morsel of his savant-esque talent to lead an insurgency against the atrocities spilling from red, white and blue political tyranny. With no names mentioned, you know exactly who was locked in lyrical target through the visceralism in verses, which uses country folk storytelling to unfold the tale of how freedom died in America and exposed its ambivalence to spilling blood across continents.

The way the release soulfully rallies anger towards the inhumanity while choosing poetry over specificity makes the single even more powerful. As the harmonies leave a trail of emotion behind them and the constant rhythmic gravity draws you deeper into the reverberant baritone guitars, Drew David conjured something hypnotically potent with this seminal release. If the lore in Sinners found its way into this reality, Drew David would summon his fair share of demonic souls.

Can we please protect him from MAGA at all costs?

Freedom is now available on all major streaming platforms. Find your preferred way to listen via the artist’s website & connect via Instagram and Facebook. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Post-Punk Meets Oil-Soaked Sermons in The Ravens of Gallis Row’s Drill Baby Drill

Posted on 12 December 2025
Drill Baby Drill by The Ravens of Galiis Row

The Ravens of Gallis Row poured petrol over political theatre and struck a match with Drill Baby Drill, their fourth single and the first since rebranding from Judas Goat & the Bellwether. Engineered by Jon Buckett, mixed by Ben Scott, and mastered by Pete Maher, the track comes steeped in the sort of sardonic fire that flickers on the edge of collapse. It’s not satire, not really. It’s scripture for a sick world, sung with a smirk and strung with the dissonant paradox of Diabolos Musica: once branded demonic, now a potential sound of the sacred.

Through sermonic Americana folk strings that jangle like warning bells in an abandoned chapel, the South West England-based band channel post-punk shadows without shedding the red, white and blue tint of their apocalyptic vision. The acoustic lines spark and scrape, while the chorus drills into your consciousness with militaristic cadence. Vocals from Sara Vian strike between preacher, prophet and performance artist, flanked by Pete Vincent’s acoustic grit, Sash Impey’s incendiary leads, Jim Scriven’s deep bass resonance, and Stefan Steinhoff laying rhythmic foundation beneath the holy-hellfire.

Where Landman drowns reality in glossy revisionism, Drill Baby Drill refuses to offer comfort. It drags you into the maw of oil-soaked nationalism and baptises you in corporate lies, weaponised religion, and the crumbling illusions of liberty. It’s a Bond theme for the burnt-out, sermon and spectacle twisted together in a hymn for lost morality. From Gaza to Vegas, no desertscape is spared.

Drill Baby Drill is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Bandcamp.
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Review by Amelia Vandergast

Bluesy dissent and conscious intent charged Robert Larrabee’s release, ‘Nothing Great Comes from Hate’

Posted on 4 December 2025

Robert Larrabee’s Nothing Great Comes from Hate salved one of the sickest facets of society with its vintage-toned, charisma-soaked defiance. Reverence for the annals of rock n roll and the lineage of bluesy protest tracks collides with a wide-awake social consciousness, making people on both sides of the political spectrum pause and reflect on how their animosity is only causing more friction, leading to more tears in our social fabric.

With all the conviction of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Fortunate Son and Buffalo Springfield’s For What It’s Worth, Larrabee ensured that his legacy as a stripes-earned rock n roll unreckonable force is one that not only exhibits his talent but creates a ripple effect of consciousness and positive action.

The intentions behind the single run deeper than nostalgia or genre loyalty. After decades striding through international stages, film sets, and theatrical productions, Larrabee now channels his experiences into messages he feels carry weight. His reflections on unity, compassion and inherited responsibility shape the core sentiment of his discography.

The writing draws from memories of relatives who fought for freedoms that were never meant to be twisted into division. That thread ties cleanly into his wider body of work. As a Nashville recording artist and long-standing performer, he has built a signature show, An Evening With The Legends, where live impressions of iconic artists sit beside original material written in tribute to those who shaped him. Across casino residencies, cruise contracts and tours around the US, Mexico, London and Australia, he has honed a way of narrating musical lineage while keeping audiences leaning in.

Nothing Great Comes from Hate is now available on all major streaming platforms; for the full experience, stream the official music video on YouTube. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Rooftop Screamers found euphoria in the ruins of reality with ‘Forsaken’

Posted on 9 November 2025

If I were given the option of living in a utopia filled with hollow, soulless sound or enduring this drenched-in-dejection reality, I’d still choose the latter if it meant I could feel the raw euphoria of resonating with protestive cultural expositions like Forsaken by Rooftop Screamers featuring Stephen McSwain. Opening with a pure pop-punk riff, the nostalgia rush hits instantly before the band tears through any threat of predictability. There’s a harbingeringly histrionic edge that flickers between the contours of Green Day-esque pop-punk and raucous alt-rock, fuelled by enough existential angst to shake the dust off the genre’s complacency.

The single feels like an urgent act of rebellion against a world that keeps demanding submission. Each lyric cuts through with a sense of disillusionment that transcends performance; it’s a howl from the collective psyche of modern consciousness, demanding to know how we ended up in this loop of degradation. Yet, amid the hopelessness, the soaring choruses sell sanctuary, an echo of shared resistance. Rooftop Screamers channel that pain into melody with unfeigned volition, turning despair into something almost euphoric. Even as the lyrics confess there’s nothing left to say, their sound proves otherwise, bleeding consolation into an apathetic age.

Spearheaded by Mike Collins, Rooftop Screamers is less a conventional project and more a creative experiment in unity. Collins’ passion for collaboration draws in both local and international talent, shaping tracks with a layered intricacy that hints at his musical lineage—Bowie, The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Steven Wilson, and Jeff Lynne all hum faintly beneath the surface. Yet Forsaken stands wholly in the present, a blistering outcry for those still wrestling with meaning in the modern wreckage and trying not to slip into full blown nihilism.

Forsaken is now available on all major streaming platforms; for the full experience, watch the official music video on YouTube. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Smiling Jackals flipped the mirror on our schadenfreude in Freakshow

Posted on 8 November 2025

Smiling Jackals rolled out the alt-rock Freakshow with their latest single, which has made its way from the 90s to our epoch, which still thrives upon the exploitation of punching down the most disenfranchised. Decades have passed, we still haven’t learned our lesson, and Smiling Jackals’ social dissection is just as cutting as the day it was penned. Sounding like it came out of Chris Cornell’s studio, the atmospheric intensity of the grungy retaliation to televised misery drags you in by the scruff of your neck, uses the distortion to make you stand unguarded against the thematic core of the track, instilling you with deep shame you’ve ever felt schadenfreude every time you declare something as cringe on TikTok while you pretend that humiliation is cultural execution.

With a sense of visceral volition that stands up against The Holy Bible era of The Manics, Smiling Jackals are one of the only bands on this side of the millennium strong enough to carry us through the inertia of modernity. After more than a decade apart, they’re back in the same place, same room, same raw energy. Older. Louder. Sharper. Their third self-released single on their label, Smalltimeville Records, shows no signs of mellowing. Originally written in the late 90s during the peak of tabloid talk show voyeurism, Freakshow finds new relevance in an age where shame is monetised and streamed, not just consumed but performed.

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

Passenger to Tamworth soundtracked the absurdity of aggression with the alt-punk protest, ‘Rockets Over Russia’

Posted on 3 November 2025

Passenger to Tamworth let the snark of alt-punk sink its teeth in with Rockets Over Russia. Dissections of geopolitical absurdity blaze past at a frenetically dizzying pace, matching the speed at which the next atrocity gets buried beneath the last. Between the commentary on twisted warmongering trajectories and the confrontational rhythmic pace, the track’s spoken word punk laureate flings himself into a new cerebral arena of protest music with a bass-driven roar.

Through a raw refusal to sanitise outrage, Rockets Over Russia delivers nihilistic clarity via chaotic satire, though it never leans into self-indulgence. The production is purposefully stripped, giving the wryly observed lyricism room to land and sting. There’s a flash of The Stranglers in the rubble-strewn noise, but Passenger to Tamworth carries it closer to home for fans of Fontaines D.C. and Kneecap who crave something that cuts a bit closer to the bone. It’s music that confronts the war machine while acknowledging the exhaustion of shouting into a void.

The single arrives as part of the debut EP, The Fates Lead Him Who Will… The Unwilling They Drag, released via One Fat Dog Records. Across five snark-heavy tracks — including Constantinople, Straight Bar, Cans and No Opera in the Cayman Islands — Passenger to Tamworth plays high-functioning cynic, lobbing irony-laced truth bombs that invite you to laugh, rage, or neck another can just to cope. After years of protest punk losing its edge to polish, this hits like a battered amp plugged back into a purpose.

Rockets Over Russia is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Paisley Heart & n3 weaponise rave as resistance in their dark techno juggernaut, War Outside

Posted on 21 October 2025

The mechanical volition of industrial pop thrashes against dark techno in War Outside, a harbingering anthem born from the collaboration between Paisley Heart and n3. With the socially aware conviction of Atari Teenage Riot, the progression-rich release toys with rhythmic pulses as it flows through a myriad of stylistic shifts instead of simply ushering listeners through the usual build-ups and drops.

What takes shape is a juggernaut of a vignette that viscerally encapsulates the dissonance of feeling your body beat in sync with the music while knowing the doomsday clock is inching closer to midnight — and that hand is moving even faster for marginalised groups.

If the likes of Grendel, God Module and Suicide Commando already stalk your playlists, make space for Paisley Heart as he amplifies the voices of the disenfranchised until they’re impossible to tune out. Written in response to rising right-wing politics, the devastation in Palestine, and the daily attacks on queer and trans lives, War Outside reframes the rave as both protest and sanctuary. Beyond the studio, Paisley Heart has taken the message to the streets with signs, microphones and flags, embodying the track’s defiant vision: that the dancefloor isn’t just a place for release, it’s a space reclaimed by those fighting for survival. It’s where rage becomes rhythm, and collective resistance pulses harder than the kick drum.

Through sheer sonic intent, War Outside turns music into protest and protest into art, refusing to let the noise fade into the background.

War Outside is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast