Third album from Cumbria’s finest, mylittlebrother.

Release Date: 24th October 2025

Label: Self Release

Format: Vinyl / Digital

THANK THE DRUMMER

I’ve tried to distance myself from music reviews over the last few years. A pleasurable experience that slowly turned into a chore after writing for over ten years with one of the ‘big boys’ and my anxiety and stress levels increased with deadlines to write. I lost my mojo.

I’ve ‘dipped in’ very occasionally when an album draws me to it almost making me feel as though my input was required.

The most recent was sent to me by a drummer. A drummer of a band that I have truly admired since their debut long player If We Never Came Down in 2014 and a band that I have booked to play locally to my home on three occasions. The line-up has changed significantly since then and the new eleven tracker, but it seems like a natural progression that has led to Throwing Darts At Maps. Founding members Dan Mason (guitars/vocals) and Will Harris (vocals/keys) are now partnered with Simon Buttress (the passive aggressive drummer!), Robin Howson (bass), and Jamie Williams (guitar).

A RARE TALENT

Harris is the main songwriter. Nine of the tracks are penned by him and album opener World On Fire is co-written with Buttress. The eleventh track, Gone, is written and sung by Mason but more of that later.

Harris is a rare talent. A truly superb songwriter and lyricist, writing some of the most underrated pop-rock that your ears will ever experience. It hasn’t gone unnoticed as the bands live reputation increases and tracks occasionally appear on television shows. One hopes that their chance at the big time happens soon on their third album which once again triumphs over the previous.

World On Fire begins slowly with ambient keys and jingling guitar riffs. Lyrically, it’s sad, it’s poignant and thought provoking. The world is going, at pace, to shit, and the album opener is maybe a strange choice but its placement works serving up a sense of melancholy and anticipation as we crash into You Know Better – a raucous rocker with a soaring vocal that immediately hits the happy hormones.

The calming piano at the end of You Know Better blends perfectly with the opening of Adeline which in turn, conversely, rises back up again. Magnificent, one of several pre-cursors to the album release, perhaps typifies the confidence of a band in its prime. It’s more wonderful harmonies and tight musician ship amidst several ‘Oooh, la, la, la’s’ that occasionally creep in.

SHEER CLASS

Then comes Gone. Starting delicately with minimal guitar and gradually introducing Mason on lead vocal. Gone is a grower. It may not hit you at first listen but after two or three something ‘clicks.’ Lyrically it is both beautiful and heartbreaking and vocally it stretches over several ranges with ease. It is, arguably one of the finest moments of the album, possibly even of the year. It is sheer class.

Following fifty-one seconds of Interlude No. 6 is Soldiers. Written about the mental armour we wear rather than members of the armed forces. It’s obviously a very personal song to Harris and oozes honesty and sincerity. Pace wise, it is another breather before another upbeat piece in the form of Julie’s Game and the rocky, bassy Organic Cocaine another of the albums strong points with is anthemic in parts just waiting for a live audience to shout the song title back at the band at the appropriate moments. There are parts of humour and any song that contains profanity and rhymes precarious with Aquarius is good with me.

Vine & The Vault gives us a tango just after the midway point with a singalong strapline that is difficult to forget long after the track ends and makes way for the album’s title track which is once more a thing of beauty. Harris narrates an easily believable picturescape of moments in California, you can feel the sun in your eyes and the warmth on your back as he croons soulfully as we find ourselves back on the sofa staring at the ceiling.

PERFECTION ACHIEVED

Throwing Darts At Maps was five years in the making and it’s easy to see why. Perfection was a clear objective that was achieved admirably, and this is as good an album as you will hear all year, possibly in years to come before the next mylittlebrother one hits us. Am I biased? Yes I am, but only to the degree that I find this album and this band incredibly likeable, never putting a foot wrong, never making a filler track. One day they will be a household name but, in the meantime, you could do a lot worse things that give this a listen and feel the love.

mylittlebrother online: Facebook / Instagram / Youtube / Bandcamp

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