Scotstown Dance Band ‘Johnny Lad’
‘Johnny Lad’ is the third and final single from a larger project that Scotstown Dance Band say they’ve been working on for some time. Adding their own distinct, modern flair to the old Scottish folk song, it’s an infectious addition to their catalogue – elevated by accordion, jaunty rhythms and Megan McNally’s guitar.
Bottle Rockets ‘father’s daughter’
Glasgow band Bottle Rockets shared their new EP ‘father’s daughter’ last week – their most mature, accomplished project to date. The band have always excelled at emotionally charged indie songwriting with big, hook-driven choruses – and on ‘father’s daughter’ they take this sound and lean into heavier, darker territory. The tracks are big and cinematic, with hazy shoegaze textures, powerful guitars offset and alt-pop energy, and they deal with heavier subject matter too. Tension builds and releases brilliantly throughout – oscillating from big, expansive moments to the personal and intimate. It’s another step forward for a band we’ve long admired.
Newshapes ‘rescue light’
Fresh off their headline tour, Scottish four-piece newshapes have shared a new single ‘rescue light’, the final track of their three-track EP ‘somehow i still believe’ out now via LAB Records.
One of their most intense and fast-paced tracks to date, the fan favourite draws influences from 2000s post hardcore, and the likes of Saosin and Underoath. Far heavier than previous singles ‘falling away’ and ‘baptise’, it’s full of sledgehammer riffs, pummelling rhythms and intense vocals. The EP itself is a cathartic exploration of faith and betrayal – channelling feelings of anger and hopelessness.
They say: “rescue light’ is how we’ve opened our shows this year, and it opens the EP for a reason. It’s probably the most relentlessly aggressive we’ve been in a song, and it’s one that fires us up and gets us in the headspace we need to be in to go out and show people what we can do, whether they’re in the room with us or listening elsewhere.”
Crawford Mack ‘Don’t Play The Victim’
Glasgow-born, London-based singer-songwriter Crawford Mack is back with ‘Don’t Play The Victim’. Playful and precise in equal measure, it’s an inventive, grooving slice of indie-rock that examines how male failure gets reframed as female manipulation. Co-written and produced with Rory James and featuring Alex Reeves of Elbow on drums, the track locks into an effortless groove with infectious riffs, inventive guitar work and bright synths thrown in for good measure.
“The femme fatale trope always frames the woman as the problem,” says Mack. “But it actually betrays the arrogance of the man at the centre of it. His downfall is only explicable if she somehow cheated. The song is about what happens when a woman is simply categorically better than the men around her, and those men can’t process that without feeling victimised.”
Westside Cowboy ‘Kick Stones (The Boys)’
Manchester quartet Westside Cowboy have announced their debut album ‘It Goes On’, for 21st August via Island Records. They’ve also shared a new single ‘Kick Stones (The Boys)’ – a propulsive, heady track that encapsulates the four-piece’s innate ability to hit you in the chest with their transcendent indie.
Drummer Paddy Murphy notes that the true crux of the song is “as much about how we made it as the lyrics”. He said: “We loved the way it felt to play, but we thought we couldn’t record it like that or people would think we wanted to be a stadium rock band,” bassist/vocalist Aoife Anson O’Connell explains. Instead, they translated it through their own lens, using a live recording of The Velvet Underground’s ‘What Goes On’ as their primary reference point. “We always thought, if we can pull this off it could be really fun,” Paddy details. “Taking this mad, ‘70s rock thing but then having it played by a bunch of scrawny kids.”
mary in the junkyard ‘New Muscles’
Following on from the hushed “Candelabra” and the winding ballad “Crash Landing”, “New Muscles” shows a lighter sound of mary in the junkyard whilst still retaining their sense of melodic invention. The track is structured around a playful melody and rolling percussion courtesy of drummer David Addison. The song has been in rotation in the band’s live set and became a firm favourite of fans when they supported Wet Leg on their 2025 US tour. The band say, “New muscles was originally composed on the accordion, we wrote it about David joining a gym.”
