Fighting with the Undertow #6
A monthly playlist of new punk rock, alt rock and indie music tracks
June's instalment includes Amyl and The Sniffers, Mdou Moctar, Softcult, Sorry Mom and Shellac and more.
Welcome to Fire Red Sky’s latest playlist of the 20 best punk rock, alt rock and indie music tracks to be released in the last month.
Fighting with the Undertow, a line from the same Bob Mould song that inspired the name Fire Red Sky, arrives on around the first weekend of each month. The playlist aims to help you (and me) cut through all the new music noise and maybe locate our next favourite band or album.
Halfway through the year, with my first six Fighting with the Undertow playlists under my belt and there’s plenty of candidates already for my favourite albums of 2024 when December rolls around.
Once again self-imposed rule of no band in more than one month helps uncover more and more great new music. Here’s a round-up of some of the tunes on this month’s playlist.
We start with Shellac, because of course we do. ‘WSOD’ is the first track from To All Trains, the album that came out just days after Steve Albini’s passing, and it’s light on lyrics and heavy on taut guitar and bleak humour.
Amyl and the Sniffers put out two tracks this month and both are bangers that should take them to new heights. Edging ahead out of the two is 'Facts', which is a perfect slice of Australian garage punk for these post-truth times ("Come on baby tell me the facts").
The heavy post-punk of Gurriers' 'Close Call' had me from the opening guitars that climb, purringly up your spine. It's a dystopian modern indie sound from the Irish five-piece, whose debut album is out in September.
Hardcore appears in the form of ‘Mass Hysteria’ from Electric Press, whose album – Blinded by Ignorance and Somewhat Hysterical – came out last month. On this track the Leeds, UK band are joined by Manchester’s Going Off. Also going hard and heavy are Alberta, Canada’s End Game, whose ‘Big Shot’ is a one-minute dash of rage.
With a named designed to trip up unwary radio DJs, Softcult continue the modern cross-pollination of shoegaze on ‘One of the Pack’ with something that might be punk-gaze. There's also a more atmospheric take on the ‘gaze from Outlander's ‘Want No More’, though it’s the sort heavy shoegaze that’s got them booked to play Arctangent rather Pitchfork festival.
I wouldn’t normally say I’m a fan of novelty music, but two quirky tracks caught my ear this month, both of which spell out their S-O-N-G T-I-T-L-E-S. Birmingham’s Gans bring slipped drumbeats and the sort of energy on ‘Business’ that suggests they might give you a kicking if they thought there were being described as novelty. The Bug Club on the other hand probably wouldn’t have any problem with such a description. ‘Quality Pints’ should have me rushing to see if namechecking Half Man Half Biscuit is appropriate, it’s certainly a song that brings a smile to my face and feels perfect for humming on the way to the pub.
One-man retro electonica outfit Warrington Runcorn New Town Development Plan made my best albums of 2023 list and 'A Shared Sense of Purpose' augurs well for their next album. The track is less doomy than previous efforts and enlivened further by a remix from former Depeche Mode man Vince Clarke.
Armlock are one of the many outfits featuring in these playlists that are new to me. The Australian duo's background is in jazz and electronica, but the indie folk and idiosyncratic vocals of 'Ice Cold' take an Elliott Smith turn to challenge preconceptions. There’s more traditional indie folk from Dublin’s David Kitt, who’s joined by Niamh Regan on the self-destruction warning ‘Love Someone Else’.
The Stone Roses are lodestone of UK indie music, up there with The Smiths and Oasis for influence, but I’ve never come across a cover of one of their songs before. (Naturally, a quick Spotify search reveals versions of ‘I Wanna Be Adored’ by The Ravonettes and Death Cab For Cutie.) Catching my ear this month, Swerve’s take on the song swaps some of its mystery for menace.
That still leaves plenty more great tunes on this month’s playlist for you to dig into, including ‘Rage Bomb’ - the first single from UltraBomb’s new album Dying to Smile, which is out today, Nigeria rock from Mdou Moctar’s – ‘Oh France’, and ‘Dig’ from former Maccabees singer Orlando Weeks, with guest vocals from Wet Leg’s Rhian Teasdale.