Sometimes you don’t truly appreciate what you have until you’re faced with the prospect of losing it. Just because a relationship isn’t the perfect fairytale you hoped it would be, doesn’t mean it isn’t a love worth cherishing. Couples clash, they argue, they’ll have different needs and priorities. Sometimes you can be blinded by everyday quarrels and lose sight of what really matters – that the love you share is worth fighting for. ‘The Bitter Pill’, the new single from Czech duo &Tilly, is all about a renewed appreciation for a love shared. The world can be a bewildering, disheartening place, and finding someone willing to be by your side on that journey is worth a few bumps in the road. The track’s soft airy vocals and gentle folk arrangement perfectly captures the feel of two people picking up the pieces; rebuilding the love they share with real care and tenderness.
top tracks
Top Tracks: The Brook & The Bluff – Can’t Figure It Out
We go through life almost constantly wanting to be some different version of ourselves. Someone more charming and confident, someone who works a little harder, loves a little deeper. We want to be the adult self we imagined when we were kids, who has everything figured out. It’s all too easy to look around at your peers and see people who seem happier and better off, and wonder where you went wrong. It’s exhausting always trying to fit into some ideal version of yourself – at some point you have to let it go. ‘Can’t Figure It Out’, from Nashville based outfit The Brook & The Bluff, is a song all about letting go and accepting the things we cannot change. Taken from their new album Werewolf, out 6th March, it’s about reconciling with the fact that you’re going to make more mistakes, more wrong choices, face more frustrating mishaps. There’s no such thing as perfect, no clear path forward, sometimes you just have to trust the process. With a warm, melody driven Americana sound drawing from the likes of CCR and the Eagles, it feels like shrugging off the world and breathing easy for the first time in a long time.
Top Tracks: Late Cambrian – Together
I love it when one piece of art inspires another. We all know what it’s like to put down a book, or walk out of a cinema, and have your thoughts completely consumed by what you’ve just experienced. So engrossed by a story, so intrigued by new ideas, so awed by the handiwork of a master of their craft, that it’s all you can think about. There’s something beautiful about letting that spark ignite your own creativity, letting it guide your hands in making something new. Brooklyn band Late Cambrian do just that with their new single ‘Together’ – inspired by the horror movie of the same name, wherein some supernatural force causes a couple’s bodies to fuse into one. The menacing, proggy lead riff perfectly captures the terror of such an unknowable force, before the song gives way to a lush, soulful sound as the couple surrender and embrace the twisted romance of two becoming one.
Top Tracks: Holly Humberstone – To Love Somebody
With her most recent single ‘Die Happy‘, Holly Humberstone closed 2025 by teasing an exciting new era. It truly felt like she was tapping in to something special, and it left me eager for more. Thankfully Holly hasn’t left us waiting for long, as her latest release ‘To Love Somebody’ is quick to build on the rapidly growing hype and anticipation for her sophomore album Cruel World (out 10th April). Inspired by the age old wisdom that “it’s better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all“, ‘To Love Somebody’ is a reflection on accepting the bad with the good. How heartbreak is as much an essential human experience as falling in love is. How knowing that kind of pain and sadness gives a better frame of reference, and a greater appreciation for, all the joy and happiness in our lives. The track is home to some stunning synth work, a wonderfully expressive rhythm section, and an addictive call and response pre-chorus. Best of all though is the incredible music video, drawing inspiration from Nosferatu and classic Hammer horror, which perfectly captures the enchanting gothic romanticism of this new era.
Top Tracks: Megan Dixon Hood – Ghostwriter
We’re all a little haunted by who we were, and who we thought we’d be. We start out life so naïve and ambitious, head full of dreams, picturing ourselves as the main character in some epic adventure. As time goes by, our stories seldom lead to the glorious highs we envisioned. Life gets in the way, fresh hurdles and challenges get written into the plot, ever more pages appearing between where you are now and the happy ending you’re working towards. We coast through the years, just trying to get by, until our story becomes so unfamiliar that it feels like it was written by someone else entirely. What would our younger selves think of us now, I wonder? Perhaps that’s we get so drawn to tales of great heroes and fantastical worlds – because after too long in the real world, we start to feel like side characters in our own story. ‘Ghostwriter’ finds Megan Dixon Hood trying to reckon with the stranger described in all the ink scrawls laid before her, and where her idea of herself fits within the story so far, before resolving that the ending is still yet to be written. A stunning return to her bewitching gothic folk roots, ‘Ghostwriter’ is a powerful reminder that every new day is a blank page, and a new chance to rewrite your own story.
Top Tracks: Cristina Hart – Little Crimes
It’s been said that when you look at someone through rose tinted glasses, all their red flags just look like flags. You can become so besotted with the wrong person that you can no longer see them for who they truly are. You’ll keep getting hurt time and again, yet still believe every insincere apology. Your friends will worry about you, call out the toxicity for what it truly is, and in response you’ll just keep making excuses for the one who hurt you and say “you don’t know them like I do”. Eventually some transgression will be the one that tips the scale and causes their glamour to drop, finally letting you see the way they’re treated you. “I know what you’re like, now that I’m on the other side“. Our favourite pop rock powerhouse Cristina Hart crushes those discarded rosy glasses beneath her boot heels on her fierce new single ‘Little Crimes’. Full of fire and confidence, it’s all about calling someone out for the pain and frustration they’ve put you through, all the time and energy you wasted telling yourself they were right for you, and making a promise to yourself never to welcome them back into your life. I’m loving the edge, energy, and self-assuredness woven into Cristina’s recent singles; keeping the momentum going, and growing the anticipation for what the next era has in store for this rising star.
Top Tracks: Exploring Birdsong – Romanticise
I love a good villain song – they were the highlight of practically every Disney film as a kid. Villains in movies always seem to be having a blast; hogging the spotlight, chewing the scenery, performing ridiculously over-the-top acts of wickedness and skulduggery. The kind of villainy we encounter in real life however is nowhere near as charming. Everyday evil is something simple, banal and empty. We rationalise the actions of those that hurt us as something intentionally antagonistic and spiteful, because that makes sense, moreso than the reality that toxicity is often just their broken default setting. ‘Romanticise’, from progressive pop trio Exploring Birdsong, takes the everyday evil of a toxic relationship and dials it up to moustache twirling levels of villainy.
Written from the perspective of the perpetrator, it depicts someone with a well of malice within, who sees the world through red lenses. Someone eager to cause pain (“I opened up your chest, your heart is on a plate, So I filled the wound with salt, and put it on a flame“) and so cartoonishly wicked as to view positivity with derision and distain (“You could romanticise a car wreck at 80, the sky while it’s raining“). A great villain song delves into a darker place while still being a fun ride, and between the twisted lyricism, the gut-punch metal breakdown, and that addictive earworm chorus, Exploring Birdsong absolutely nailed it. ‘Romanticise’ is one of band’s best tracks to date, and I can’t get enough of it.
Top Tracks: Holly Humberstone – Die Happy
I’ve heard it said that falling in love is giving someone the power to destroy you and trusting them not to. There’s danger inherent in being so vulnerable with another person, to let so much of your own happiness ride on them. Holly Humberstone’s latest single embraces the danger. ‘Die Happy’ is all about throwing yourself into love, fully and recklessly. Whatever the outcome, the rush is worth it. Holly’s soft heady vocals carry a dreamy quality in the vein of Lana Del Rey, while the wistful synth work imbues the track with the same level of nostalgia and romanticism as a John Hughes movie. The beating heart of it all though is its gorgeous, bittersweet chorus. That earworm refrain of “if we crash and kiss the dash, baby, tragically, To die with you is to die happy” feels like a line lifted straight out of ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’. This kind of airy gothic romance suits Holly down to the ground, and leaves me eager to hear what other delights her next record will have in store.
Top Tracks: Patricia Atzur – Freddy Krooner
Things like grief, trauma and heartache have a way of lingering in the back of your mind long after you thought you were over it. A lovely day can be ruined by something innocuous triggering a memory you thought you’d long buried, or a peaceful night can be ruined by your subconscious mind reopening a dark chapter. Barcelona based artist Patricia Atzur perfectly captures the latter, the moment when dreams turn into nightmares, with her ingeniously titled new single ‘Freddy Krooner’. Opening with a gorgeous soft jazz melody that feels like the soundtrack to a romantic summer getaway on a sun-kissed tropical beach, the track takes a dramatic shift halfway through into darker territory. A frantic pace kicks in, urging you on as though some unseen terror is hot on your heels, as the wailing guitar begins to hum with the menace of a swarm of angry hornets, all before collapsing back into the tranquil setting where we first started. What’s more, the music video really adds to the dreamlike feel with its trippy and unnerving Twin Peaks style visuals, able to slip between the dreamy and the nightmarish with ease. On ‘Freddy Krooner’, Patricia Atzur not only hones in on a great concept, but commits to it wholeheartedly on every level, elevating it into something truly fascinating.
Top Tracks: Del Roscoe – Black Hats
The best folk songs are those that feel like they’re telling a story that’s been retold a thousand times. Words of wisdom that get passed down through generations, scary stories flitting from one fireside to another, tales warning about the horrors that lurk just beyond the woods. With ‘Black Hats’, Atlanta based Americana outfit Del Roscoe give voice to a cautionary tale that feels especially apt and timely for the world we find ourselves in. It sees the same old vicious cycle of hatred personified as some skeletal spectre heralding the end times; describing those that peddle fear and lies, stoking mistrust and division, all in order to sate their own greed and desire for control. Nestled within this twisted tale lay sage advice about how best to stand firm against the rising tide of darkness – shoulder to shoulder, in solidarity with one another, and refusing to give an inch. Pairing this prescient message with a wonderfully handcrafted video, with a pop-up book storytelling style and the band sporting uncanny paper mache masks, does wonders to add to the spooky campfire atmosphere. Breathing new life into an old warning that sadly oft needs repeating, ‘Black Hats’ is a story that deserves to be shared far and wide.
Belwood Music 