The Fierce & The Dead: Regional Theatre

English quintet The Fierce & The Dead are gravitating to a blend of shoegaze and metal on their new album Regional Theatre. The post-rock leanings and forays into progressive rock are still there, but not as prominent as before. It makes it a bit easier to digest for people who are not familiar with the history of the band. They started out in 2010 as an all-instrumental experimental trio with the long-form track Part 1. Over the years their sound has shifted slightly with each release. The big surprise came in 2023 when bass player Kevin Feazey stepped up to the mike for the News From The Invisible World album. Textures gave way to "proper" songs albeit with a twist. Start with Hypernormalisation which covers all the bases (caveat: they are a lot of them).

Fast forward to 2026 and the band have found a new common ground for coming up with melodies that can sit comfortably on top of intricate rhythms - a track Somehow may sound radio-friendly, but there is plenty to enjoy for people who can appreciate the layers that are not so obvious. Black Sabbath will love the rumbling Hey Nightmare and their ode to rock 'n' roll The 1234 could be their ticket to long overdue airplay.

Westside Cowboy: shows in Glasgow, Manchester & London

photo: Clémentine Schneiderman

Mancunian indie quartet Westside Cowboy are riding high on the rave reviews of their It Goes On album. Their current club tour is sold out (well, almost), so they take a gamble with playing bigger venues in Glasgow, Manchester & London in March next year. "They rose through the ranks really fast, with two well-received EPs (This Better Be Something Great and So Much Country 'Till We Get There), which landed them a record deal with a major. Thankfully the suits let them do whatever the fuck they wanted to do and record: quirky lo-fi songs that would have never survived a clean production. It is all a bit ramshackle in an endearing way."

Phish 2026 Summer tour SBD + torrents: 2026/09/06 Commerce City, CO

Commerce City, CO 2026 poster by @SummerbluessArt

Phish
2026/09/06
Dick's Sporting Goods Park
Commerce City, CO

Set 1:

1. Ghost
2. Kill Devil Falls
3. Roggae
4. Blaze On >
5. Backwards Down the Number Line >
6. Axilla (Part II) >
7. Taste
8. Split Open and Melt

The Happy Somethings: Straying Waifs (Bootleg)

English twee trio The Happy Somethings rounded up a bunch of "outtakes, undertakes and pre-takes" and a live one, because they felt they needed a bootleg. If people go to trouble of releasing your recordings without your consent, you made it, but since there were no takers so far they want ahead and put one out themselves. Straying Waifs (Bootleg) does not suffer from poor sound quality, false starts and sub-par songwriting. The acoustic versions of Consolation Street and Fragile The Heart are as catchy as the electric versions that ended up on their A Healthy Dose Of Hope album.

Long-time followers of the band will be pleasantly suprised by the bass-heavy take on Hi There Sunshine and Just Call Me (Again). Three-part harmonies get an outing with the previously unreleased Bed Friend (Clean Sheets), plus it offers some sensible relationship as well. These songs were not deemed worthy until now, but most indie bands would kill to come up with even one or two of them.

Words about music (853): Bill Evans

Music should enrich the soul; it should teach spirituality by showing a person a portion of himself that he would not discover otherwise. It's easy to rediscover part of yourself, but through art you can be shown part of yourself you never knew existed. That's the real mission of art. The artist has to find something within himself that's universal and which he can put into terms that are communicable to other people. The magic of it is that art can communicate to a person without his realizing it... enrichment, that's the function of music.

Bill Evans