Tag: The Great Escape

This is the musical equivalent of elegant dining, and Cassandra Jenkins serves up a proper taster menu of complimentary flavours. Jazzy aromas arise from a plate of pop-sensibilities, whilst new-age guitar rock pours across the dish like an unctuous sauce with a gloss of poetic insight.   PHOTOS : SARA-LOUISE BOWREY

Eaves Wilder has a target audience – her 14-year-old self. She writes catchy but gentle takes on riot-G motifs and tries to be at her own shoulder as an often sad young teenager to promise her that life will soon open out into a world of opportunity. You don’t have to be a 14-year-old girl…
Read more

Life’s a riot for these five Leeds girrrls, and their music is firmly rooted in that impassioned proto-punk phenomenon, but it also screams with pop-protocols that bring it bang up-to-date for discerning Gen-Z be-boppers to get all sweaty and heady to. PHOTOS : SARA-LOUISE BOWREY

You can’t avoid listening the Barking Poets and imagining how they must have spent many a long sweaty night pogoing to The Clash down at the local school disco. The alt-punk London band wears this retro badge firmly and proudly on its sleeve like a boy scout with a merit for woodcraft. It’s unreconstructed classic…
Read more

Ireland isn’t all about new snarly, rappy, or massively electro bands these days… the country continues to produce delightful voices too… it’s in the population’s green genes. But Chubby Cat does fuse her vocal talent with some interesting nu-rock hooks, and synth-heavy backing tracks – and her lyrics don’t mince words either. Joined on stage…
Read more

Eighty Eight Miles are a relatively new Midlands outfit who’s influences hark back to the classic rock/pop scene of the heady 70s that came out of the west coast of the USA. You can pick out the elements for yourself to work out what’s in their collective old vinyl collection … but with interest from…
Read more

Hailing from East Berlin but via Southern Spain, Morocco, and Ireland’s BIMM Institute in Dublin, Emileo delivers celtic-inspired songs that blend with electronic beats and Eastern influences. She was applauded by Sinéad O’Connor for a very ‘special’ something, and she wants to change the world. PHOTOS : SARA-LOUISE BOWREY

A modern take on psych-kraut-rock from this Toronto-based four-piece, in whose raw garage production ethic you can almost hear the spanners rattling on their hooks on the wall. PHOTOS : SARA-LOUISE BOWREY

Soulful jazz-funk pours effortlessly out of the talented Immy, a young woman with a big voice. With deep Bristol roots and a deeply insightful knack for a vocal hook, she will be haunting the Jazz Cafe and many other cool nightspots before you know it.   PHOTOS : SARA-LOUISE BOWREY

Two voices wrapped so tightly around each other that you can hardly spot the join. This is a proper she/they duo out of Berlin who can make even the biggest stage an intimate experience for their audoence. PHOTOS : SARA-LOUISE BOWREY  

Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap, and DJ Próvaí create uncompromising Irish hip-hop that rises from the gutters of Belfast and wraps itself around your throat in a stanglehold grip. Be afraid. Be happy. Be yourself. Listen to Kneecap. PHOTOS : SARA-LOUISE BOWREY  

Armed with just a drumkit, a powerful vocal, and a host of dexterously produced backing tracks featuring all your favourite guitar and key parts, Lost Romantic are two charismatic musicians on a mission to blow cobwebs out of the rafters of venues around the world. Proper diva-geezers. PHOTOS : SARA-LOUISE BOWREY

We’ve come all over with fond memories of DEVO at their quintessential best listening the The Meat Sweaters. Those sharp spiky synth lines and impassioned machine gun lyrics are a proper blast back to less complicated days. But this is modern music too. It stands tall alongside the Squids of the world, and, quite correctly,…
Read more

Unreconstructed heavy rockers, Mister Strange, hark from Manchester and offer up simple, no-holds-barred old-time heavy guitars and a sip of simple seventies pleasure for aging headbangers or nu-rock moshers alike. PHOTOS : SARA-LOUISE BOWREY

Monakis have been ripping the throat out of the South East music scene alongside acts such as Kid Kapichi and SNAYX for the last few years, and their live shows always growl with visceral hunger.   PHOTOS : SARA-LOUISE BOWREY

Pop almost goes nu-country as Neckbreakers showcase something that also has echoes of Fleetwood Mac… and those echoes are really quite strong. Things feel fun when the beat picks up and its lazy in the breaks. A real roller-coaster of lightweight indie rock that punches above its grade. PHOTOS : SARA-LOUISE BOWREY

‘On a mission to make strangers misty in the disco‘ is the proclamation in System Exclusive’s press pack. They have squeezed their minimalistic music into a simple van-life-style and having set out from their native California are now looking to find new friends and fans who are open to old-school, synth-ridden harmonics laced with up-tempo,…
Read more

‘Music for the clinically spooky and horny‘ reads Tom Saint’s super-brief Spotify bio. His songs definitely do have a scary-movie vibe to them…you can sense them prowling down dark corridors and around the bins in back-alleys as the lights flicker and splutter and the air vibrates with sinister, ghostly echoes of atrocities past or yet…
Read more

With a busy festival season ahead of them, Londoners Unpeople will be rocking and rolling their way to a field near you very soon. Solid anthemic riffs with soaring vocals and the sort of full-metal-jacket basslines that fill stadiums with throbbing waves of sonic loveliness. PHOTOS : SARA-LOUISE BOWREY

Wild Mother play the Alternative Escape 2024 PHOTOS : SARA-LOUISE BOWREY

All the way from Brixton, Alien Chicks haven’t traveled as far as many of the globe-trotting acts at The Great Escape, but they have already sold out gigs at The 100 Club and The Lexington and have garnered radio play on BBC Radio 1 and 6 Music, as well as scoring some great reviews along…
Read more

‘Australian frog enthusiast’ aren’t three words often found in the opening sentence of an artist’s official Spotify biography. But Asha Jefferies is one where they do. Whether frogs feature in any of the musical tales on her forthcoming debut 10-track album, ‘EGO RIDE’ you will have to listen out for yourself. But listen you will,…
Read more

Two UK-based Italian/Punjabi teenage sisters have taken their name (Baby Said) from one of the songs of their favourite artists (Måneskin Now), and having brought in help on rythmn guitar and drums have created an indie-rock band with a fast and furious trajectory. A heavy gig-schedule under another name in advance of unleashing their punk-pop…
Read more

BEX is a proper punk frontwoman. Confident and BS-free lyrics challenge stereotypes and leave no prisoners. And with a real focus on words her messages come across clear and loud in the mix. Add to this her powerful stage presence and a solid work-ethic and there’s no reason to believe BEX won’t be hitting some…
Read more

These two Australian pop-princesses have all the Gen Z bases covered. As well as a powerfully-produced alternative take on strong, modern chart anthems they have made headway in all the various strands of the multiverse, be that as tastemakers or with collaborations across magazines and TV. Importantly though, their music is reaching the masses and…
Read more

When you see a band who mentions Slowdive and St Etienne under supports and collaborations you know the direction of travel. The introspective gaze of this two-piece act is firmly on their shoes. Deary hit number 1 in the UK vinyl singles chart back in May 2023 with ‘Fairground’…ones to watch. PHOTOS : SARA-LOUISE BOWREY

Aussie pop-punk with a really dance-able fizz about their music (there’s some DEVO echoes lurking in the mix we think), Gut Health seem to have ‘fun’ written through them like bitter-sweet sticks of Brighton rock. PHOTOS : SARA-LOUISE BOWREY

Lemondaze to rhyme with Shoegaze – and five ears since their initial musical releases this erstwhile Cambridge crew have garnered admiration from members of bands such as Lush and Ride, clearly cementing them into the fraternity of bands who sway to the beat of a slow drum. PHOTOS : SARA-LOUISE BOWREY

If two and a half million streams counts as a hit then Malice K has at least one with his wistful song, ‘Beautiful People’… with its circular refrain that drifts lazily around your head and epitomises his ability to thread the warp and weft of song structure into delightful tapestries of happy/sad vignettes on relationships…
Read more

Dreamily moody and stripped down rock of the kind much loved by festivals such as End of the Road who specialise in the more cerebral end of the indie spectrum, Mary and The Junkyard could be the soundtrack to the thoughtful moments of your life. PHOTOS: SARA-LOUISE BOWREY [flick_set id = ‘72177720317245619’]

Here’s another Irish band who have caught our ear recently. They are only a few years past their first sweaty gig, but have developed a real momentum and deserve to be on watch lists… PHOTOS: Sara-Louise Bowrey

YARD: More evidence if an were needed that Ireland is churning out some great electro-rock crossover acts right now…

You know why we love SNAYZ so much… they are simply one of the best things on the live circuit these days. Not to be missed.

TASH isn’t afraid of putting twenty-seven tempo changes into her songs… meaning the pace of the pit shifts and darts about to her own internal metronome.

Australian garage-poppers who have been bobbing around since 2016 and deliver a cheerfully layered style of chart-rock.