They’re currently halfway through their 2026 UK Headlining Tour (see our review of last week’s Bristol show here) and, still, the songs keep on a-coming.

Barbara’s songs don’t deal with the mundane aspects of life; you’ll only find the words ‘moon’ and ‘June’ in their lyrics if their having a laugh at your expense and the band’s latest single, Isn’t She Strange! is no exception ton that rule. This time, the lyrical subject is… The Unconventional. Yes, Isn’t She Strange! is Barbara’s ‘…paean to the peculiar.’

Bassist Jack Hosgood gets the ball rolling with a funky bass intro, before the floodgates open to another Barbara adventure. The chorus: “Dancing, and everyone else is watching – coz nobody else is dancing except you” is archetypal Barbara. John’s voice soars marvelously, as Henry’s keyboard bubbles away – and Dean Llewellyn’s paella-wrapped guitar solo is worth dying for. Backing vocals are provided courtesy of Ella Croucher and the Tydeman brothers’ mother Lindsey – and they’re as smooth and sweet as a bag of coconut kisses!

Isn’t She Strange has already established itself in Barbara’s live repertoire; we’ve said it before – every song that these guys come up with is better than the last. Where will it all end??

You can listen to Isn’t She Strange! via Barbara’s Spotify feed here.

Here we go – with another ‘rebel’ song from Liverpool-based 4-piece indie-pop outfit, Keyside. Written by the band’s vocalist, Dani-Lee Parker, Lemon and Lime is a song that recalls a fondly-remembered youthful rite-of-passage: “hitting the local park and getting up to things you shouldn’t.”

We’ve ALL got our own tales to tell on that particular score, haven’t we…?

After a powerful, funky snare drum/bass intro, jangly guitars take command, whilst Dani-Lee’s strident vocals tell the story. We suddenly seem to have been plunged right back to the turn of the 1990s – and I reckon that’s precisely the point.

The band mean real business, especially during the song’s punchy chorus and it’s all very uplifting. Lemon and Lime is a song that EVERYBODY can relate to.

The past few years have certainly been exciting ones, as far as Jamie Webster is concerned. His first three albums – We Get By, Moments and 10 For the People – have all been monumental hits and 2023 single, Weekend in Paradise streamed its way to almost 50 million listens. This coming September, album #4, Running Round the Sun will be with us and Jamie will be touring to promote it – see here for details. Expect another huge hit…

Just Begun is our first taster of what to expect from Running Round the Sun. Described as “…one of the album’s cornerstone tracks,” it’s a song that offers hope during a period when, it’s fair to say, there’s not much lying around.

A fast-paced slice of chirpy, melodic folk-rock, Just Begun is as intense as you’re probably expecting it to be. Jamie wears his Scouse heritage – and his accent proudly and, despite the desolate scene that his opening lyrics describe, he leaves us with a tone of bright optimism: “We’ve only just begun!”

ISQ – or Irene Serra as she’s known to her mother – has spent over two decades building something quietly singular within the UK’s contemporary jazz scene. Her music combines sophisticated jazz musicianship, alternative pop sensibilities and rich electronic textures. New album The Silence Is Deafening – her first in 8 years – will be with us in October and, if lead single Animal is anything to go by. It’ll be worth waiting for indeed.

Speaking of Animal, ISQ says: “[It’s] about the mother/daughter relationship in all its complexity; how it shifts, clashes, softens and deepens across time. It’s a very personal track, but I think it taps into something universal about mothers, daughters and the sometimes messy way love evolves over time.”

Animal is creepingly funky and rammed with assured passion. ISQ delivers her lyrics with drama, sincerity and shiver-inducing melodicsism. Her band ooze competence and empathy and I’m particularly taken by the fluency of the guitar solo and the feel of the solid, tuneful bass. I reckon that something very special is on the way…

“I’ve got a hole in my shoe that lets in rain, and another new lump in another vein; I’ve got pills for breakfast every day, to keep my pains and fears at bay. I’ve got a portly paunch I just can’t shift; I feel undesired, dismissed, adrift.” Yes, it’s business as usual for Falkirk’s finest, those morose kings of self-deprecation. and, for all the walk and talk of ageing, hell, they just get better and better.

Styled as a disco-metal incantation, with a bubbly dance floor melody that wouldn’t have been out of place in Vienna last week, over which the trademark lugubrious sprechgesacht of Aidan Moffat’s delivery limps magnificently across the soundscape. Malcolm Middleton ads some suitably spiky guitar to pep up the overall punch and hook all ears inward.

An verse around the current place of S*otify in the pantheon shows a wry irony, that may court some comment, ahead, of course, a couple of well placed f-bombs, so business is definitely as usual. The forthcoming album, Half-told Tales, due in September, can’t come soon enough!

Getner are: singer/songwriter Quentin Wylie, drummer/vocalist Ruari Coyle, guitarist Charles Barber and bassist Will Milton and – at least as far as this debut release from the suave-punk 4-piece is concerned, it’s Ulstermen Quentin and Ruari that call the shots.

Charles and Will are northern Englanders and Quentin and Ruari hail from Derry and it’s their heritage that provides the story for Motorman. The song’s lyrics reveal the thoughts of a British squaddie, lost on the streets of Derry, Stabane, Omagh or Belfast (it could be any of them) at the height of the Troubles.

Speaking of the motivation behind the song, Quentin says: “Our songs are steeped in the history of Ireland, in particularly volatile times, that we heard stories, read about and witnessed the aftermath and passed-down trauma surrounding it as we grew up.”

Motorman explodes into life and the pace never falters. There’s anger and confusion in the bellowed lyrics, the band are tight, loud and energetic and the overall effect is both disconcerting and thoroughly riveting. And, when the song id heard alongside Harry Proctor’s tense video, the message is crystal clear.

The global popularity and growth of the prog rock is proved by this excellent release from Indian band Antariksh as a prelude to their album Rehguzarlin. It is prog with both a heavy and a lighter touch but nonetheless full of energy especially when it comes to the intricate guitar solo when the tune reaches its climactic conclusion, which incidentally is delivered by guest guitarist Jack Gardiner.

Speaking about the track, Varun Rajput, frontman and producer of Antariksh commented: 

“’Ever since I wrote and composed ‘Iltija’, I knew the song needed a guest guitar solo – someone who could bring a completely new colour and dimension to it, but also break the track wide open.

It certainly does liven matters up considerably adding to the earlier melanchoilc vocals .and the gentle syncopation of the bass and complex percussion.The song certainly breaks the mould of music we expect from our Asian friends . It may veer towards the commercial side of prog rock but what does it matter if the musicality value is high .