Slyrydes - Gatekeeper (Blowtorch)

From Galway, Slyrydes are another band I've been introduced to only recently, which led to the discovery that I'd missed out completely on the album they released last year. What Happens If You Get Happy? is the name of it and it's well worth checking out on the band's bandcamp.

But give this new single a listen first - available on glorious pink 7" vinyl. It's a gunfire shot of post punk energy, energetically thrashing against the shadowy figures in their homeland who side astride arts budgets and make career-defining decisions. You can easily see how this band's chaotic guitar-rush wouldn't endear itself to some stuffed shirt seeking some middle-class pretty boy quartet or someone marketable as the next U2 to throw public money at.

For me, though, they're worth any support this new single can generate, so get behind it and redirect some of your cash their way. If it helps them to put out more great stuff like this, we all benefit.

I'm playing Gatekeeper in my FSK show this month: you can now hear it on-demand here.

Get the single from Blowtorch here. 

Don't forget to vote in the Festive Fifty at this link. Voting is open till the end of November,

Big Winner - Dinosaur (Self-Released)

Big Winner is a new project from Charles Griffin Gibson, perhaps better known to you - and certainly to me - as Chuck, whose tales of relationship angst and heavy drinking set to a backdrop of grizzled Americana can be heard, among other places, in a session he did for me ten years ago. You can get the session - along with his other releases for the label - at the Audio Antihero bandcamp.

He's since moved from the US to Norway, become a father for the first time and reinvented himself with a positive moniker and a more upbeat sound, albeit one that thankfully hasn't sacrificed the gritty urban folk of his previous incarnation.

The single Blissin' Out is a case in point: I'm featuring it in my FSK show this month (listen on-demand here) and it serves as a fine introduction to an album which certainly signposts a new direction but one which is nonetheless aware of the what it took to get here. These are still tales of life experience, their melancholia given context and shape by the rough-hewn experiences of a man who's lived it all and come out the other side wearing the wounds like a champion. 

Get the album here.

Remember to cast your vote in this year's Festive Fifty before the end of November via this link.

Reluctant Bob & The Lonely Lovers - Not the Enemy (Self-released)

Much as I spend a lot of my so-called leisure time wrestling with angst and various levels of existential crises in both listening and reading matter, I still have time for a tune with an upbeat and positive message.

Of course, it's important that it works and the unfortunate thing is that much music/art that aims to be uplifting simply doesn't work on any deeper level. That's where Reluctant Bob comes in. Robert Barker, the eponymous Bob, reminds us of the value of sticking with a relationship rather than giving up when the going gets tough. 

Not the Enemy recounts a tale of resilient friendship in the face of threatened conflict and does so with the kind of delightful indie pop verb that could so easily, in less skilled hands, lead to something disappointingly disposable. It's a trap this Irish band avoid completely as Bob's semi-whispered reflections rise above the plaintive melodic backdrop to affirm the virtue of sticking with it. 

They've got a bunch of gigs lined up in their home country in the new year which, along with the link to this single (out on 19 November), can be found on their bandcamp here.

I played the single in my FSK show this month, which can now be heard on-demand here. 

Royal Commission - An Baile I Mo Chroi (Self-Released)

For the uninitiated, this Melbourne-based outfit have produced some of the finest tunes in 2026. With their new single, which translates as The Home in My Heart, they may well have left the best till last, or almost last as another single, Didn't They Do Well?, is set for release next month.

Essentially the project of Dean Robb, Royal Commission's music can be placed into a post-punk/lo-fi category if categories are your thing but don't get the idea there's anything formulaic in what's going on here: Robb gives off a kind of bedroom eloquence I only really find reminiscent of bands from the Budapest scene I was chronicling (and playing) more than a decade ago. Anything that makes me revisit Amstatten Bedroom Punk can only be a good thing - and Royal Commission give me far more besides.

Their excellent album Into Rock n Roll came out in September and features a slew of great singles, perhaps chief among them the wonderful Emotional Support Australian. What An Baile I Mo Chroi reveals is that Dean Robb has got plenty more up his sleeve, which is great news for all of us.

You can hear the single in my Dandelion Radio show this month, now available on-demand here.

Download the single and album here. 

And another reminder that voting in this year's festive is open until the end of the month at this link. 

The Ale Trail: Runaway Brewery (Stockport)

Each Christmas, I put an order in with a brewery I haven't tried before. I was unusually early getting myself organised this year, which comes with its own problems, meaning that the Runaway delivery - which arrived promptly early next week - was standing there last night while I fancied a quick swig of something different.

To cut it short, I'll need to order some more for Christmas having made significant inroads into the bottles of East India Porter and Dry Irish Stout last night. All the bottles are 330ml, allowing for speedy imbibing and the stout, in particular, proved a winning tipple: at an easy 4.5% ABV, it was also a lot less powerful than the porter. Other porters and stouts in the batch, of the smoked and gingerbread variety, still await sampling. There's also an enticing ESB in there.

If you're tastes are different from mine, you may wish to note that their bottled range also includes a Pale, an IPA, a West Coast IPA, a Sourdough Kvass and a Raspberry & Lemon Sour. I'm sure it's also worth a visit to their taproom, which is open between Thursday and Sunday.

Gilla Band - Pugnello (Rough Trade)

Gilla Band are the kind of group you don't want to change, or at least not beyond certain boundaries. I prefer the idea that they'll remain within their chosen musical idiom and continue to probe the many opportunities it offers. On Pugnello, I'm pleased to report, we find them doing precisely that.

It's been a while since their last album, Most Normal, assaulted our eardrums and, with the band's members pursuing their individual projects in the period between then and now, I was worried that the Gilla Band story would end there. Thankfully that hasn't happened and, while the band describe this album as 'the boldest left turn in a career full of them', it's not so much of a left turn that it takes us away from what I love about them. This is every bit as gloriously noisy as you'd want a Gilla Band release to be: the sound that has come to define them is, after all, less a prison cell and more a chamber of richly eclectic noise.

I played one of the preview tracks, Placeholder, in my FSK show last month but in my Dandelion Radio show this month I'm giving full rein to my own predilections and playing the magnificent Crisp Pop, a seven-minute plus blunderbuss of a tune that manages to demonstrate the appeal of this band far better than mere words ever can. Hear the show on-demand here.

Get the album as CD, vinyl or download here.

If you've not done so - or even if you have - you need to see this band live. Their world tour brings them back to blighty next February, with gigs in Manchester and Bristol: the full list can be found at this link.

Remember to vote in the festive fifty this month using this link.

Waterpistol - - Hey Harry (Self-Released)

This six-piece just burst out of Cardiff with one of the quirkiest indie releases of the year. They list the La's among their influences but if you're expecting cute, breezy pop tunes you're in for far more than that. If you want a reference, Los Campesinos might be a better call given the wonderful, cluttered frenzy that's going on within these four tracks. There's something vaguely garage-y going on in there too, and a flute. Better, though, to listen without any preconceptions at all so forget I mentioned it.

I played the title track in my FSK show last month and this month you can hear Felin in my Dandelion Radio show on-demand here. The release has been supported by the Art Council Wales Launchpad fund - great to hear funding like that being made available for something both as uplifting and genre-defying as this.

Available to download here.

A reminder that voting is open in the Festive Fifty here.