A bumper roundup of essential new singles from the past two weeks.

Opus Kink – ‘Come Over, Do Me Wrong’

There’s a particular kind of band that makes you feel like you’ve wandered into something you weren’t entirely invited to – a secret backroom, a fever dream, a conversation that started three drinks ago. Opus Kink are that band, and their latest single is the hand on your shoulder dragging you further into the abyss. ‘Come Over, Do Me Wrong’ doesn’t grab you straight away, it sidles up, sits too close, and waits for you to notice. As the lead single from their upcoming debut LP The Sweet Goodbye – out July 31st via So Recordings – it’s one of those songs that shapeshifts with every listen.

The track opens with a prowling, swampy groove – drums locked tight into a ritualistic pulse, while guitars jitter and hover in the corner. Dripping with Ethio-jazz influence, the horn riff nods to Mulatu Astatke – but where Astatke flows, Opus Kink loops until the walls start closing in. It’s less about movement and more about being held in place, caught in the sticky amber of something you can’t escape. Even in his opening gambit, frontman Angus Rogers isn’t interested in making things palatable: “I try, like any good man to distinguish my boredom from pain”. What follows is a slow inventory of desire tangled up with its own futility. “Half of any good thing is its proximity to its end” isn’t a throwaway observation, but more of a warning – the idea that wanting something and watching it dissolve are basically the same act. Here, temptation isn’t a detour – it’s the only road, and it’s never well-lit. And yet, for all of its shadows, the track still has glints of humour. The wink at Lennon’s ‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over)’ delivers you not into seasonal cheer but straight into “a sad gift wrapped in chicken wire” – something that looks like it might be for you – but try unwrapping it, and you’ll inevitably hurt yourself. That same absurdist streak of violence dressed in a punchline is what makes Opus Kink so magnetic. They deal in shame, emptiness, and troubled want, all served with a smirk or witty aside.

The Brighton-based sextet have always thrived in the murky territory between jazz and post-punk, and here they sound more assured than ever, crafting a voice that’s unmistakably them. It’s the sound of a group who have spent years sharpening something strange into something signature. If ‘Come Over, Do Me Wrong’ is the velvet-lined doorway into The Sweet Goodbye, expect it to lead into an even darker, more cavernous corridor. Opus Kink feel less like a band and more like chroniclers of some darker parish. They won’t just have made a debut album; they’ll have built an entire underworld that’s impossible to look away from. (Heather Collier)

Iceage – ‘Ember’

Iceage return with urgency – as affection and threat move as one, they wrap despair in groove and dissonance. The Copenhagen quintet announce their sixth album, ‘For Love of Grace & the Hereafter’—set for release on May 29th via Mexican Summer—alongside new single ‘Ember’. Recorded at Silence Studio in rural Sweden, near the Norwegian border, the forthcoming album marks their first since 2021. ‘Ember’ opens with screeching guitar riffs before pounding drums and a driving bassline set the pace. The lines “I love you in an ominous way / Are you willing to pay / Are you willing to break” are delivered in Elias Rønnenfelt’s distinctive vocal style, shifting between strained deadpan and raw aggression, framing love as something that demands sacrifice—teetering on the verge of destruction. The band’s evolving sound showcases a complex, intricate blend of melodic punk: distorted guitar lines add visceral grit, while insistent percussion drives the vocals into an emotional ascent, straining toward release. Iceage’s songwriting remains cynical yet poetic, tracing a dark sensibility where melancholy and beauty collide, pushing their musical expression toward an unpolished, urgent edge. (Isabel Kilevold)

Martial Arts — ‘Too Much Fun’

After releasing a trio of excellently noisy post-punk singles in 2024, it was beginning to feel like too long since we’d heard from Martial Arts. ‘Too Much Fun’ is a much-needed and impressive return to the studio from one of the country’s most relentless live bands. Whilst this one feels punchier and more accessible than their previous work, everything that captured our attention two years ago mercifully remains intact: the use of three guitarists still makes for a more dynamic indie-rock sound; loud-quiet dynamics are still employed masterfully; vocalist and guitarist Jim Marson still has plenty to say. “We have a tendency to overindulge in western spaces on products & luxuries we do not need, this is often at the detriment of the global south who are exploited for profit,” he explains. “I want people shouting ‘I’m having too much fun’ at shows and recognising the uncomfortable truth of why we get to live in that bubble, it’s hilarious, hideous and hopefully a wake up call” (Marty Hill)

Chinese American Bear – ‘Turn Up The Radio’

The latest single from Chinese American Bear’s new album captures their commitment to sugary and immediate alt-pop. The lyrics have something of ‘My Favourite Things’ to them, reeling off pleasant images along with simple counting phrases. The substance is not especially important, though, save for setting an upbeat tone for the pair to explore the joyous musical possibilities of the melodic puzzle they have set themselves. A driving drum beat pushes the whole thing along as an orchestra of chorus guitars and bubbly synth sounds overlap and coalesce into an irresistible and charming whole. There is no edge here, just a commitment to uninhibited fun in the band’s escapist, candy-coloured parallel universe. The new album, ‘Dim Sum and Then Some’, is shaping up to be one of the most fun records of the year. (Lloyd Bolton)

Max Winter & Tony Bontana – ‘Just’

Bridging the gap between the capital’s fresh-faced, earnest new music scenesters and the hyper-aloof, aspirational chain-vaping NTS glazer crowd – and now, the experimental underground rap community too – Max Winter is proving himself to be a sonically un-pin-downable talent, focused more on artistry and exploration than adhering to any one particular style. A searingly fresh collaboration between Winter and rising experimental rapper and producer Tony Bontana, his new single ‘Just’ arrived this week, pivoting towards avant-garde beat making in all of its harsh, turbulent glory. Fraught with stuttering, full-throated guitar and drum lacerations that stumble and trip with haphazard urgency, a cortisol storm lashes down as Bontana ruminates over freedoms and enlightenment across a poignant and emphatic set of verses. ‘Just’ arrives via cutting edge label Secret Friend, serving as a blistering teaser from Winter’s upcoming mixtape ‘Like The Season’, due for release on the 21st May. (Hazel Blacher)

Brown Wimpenny – ‘Old Molly Metcalfe’

Manchester-based folk ensemble announce their debut album ‘Long Live Brown Wimpenny’ with an original adaptation of Jake Thackray’s ‘Old Molly Metcalfe’. The tune is foregrounded by a sample of Thackray explaining the antiquated numerical system used by English farmers for counting sheep. While the image counting sheep usually carries quaint associations of drifting easefully to sleep, there is something a little more purposeful and foreboding in the chant-like recurrence of the count in the song as it centres on the bleak life of a Yorkshire shepherdess. Its psychological terrain, implied by the extensive winding instrumental of the latter sections of the track, is something alive and unsettled, no romanticised parochial dream. Stretching to nine minutes, the ensemble make the most of their expansive setup, melodic and rhythmic possibilities swimming in and out of view in a manner that speaks of the cohesion of the group’s collective instincts. The result is a humming immersion in the possibilities of the source material, as much reminiscent of the psychedelic pastoralism of Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci as any more faithfully traditional folk act. (Lloyd Bolton)

Glass Eel – ‘Amends’

Swirling with a folkloric iridescence that delights in the fanciful and strange, Glass Eel’s ‘Amends’ casts a beguiling, transportive sonic spell. The new single arrives via tastemaker label Memorials of Distinction (home to Truthpaste, wing! and Glasshouse Red Spidermite to name a few), serving as the second offering from intriguing new prospect Glass Eel – aka the moniker of London-based newcomer Alice Western. Hoofing through verdant, chimerical in-between-lands, playful psych-folk flutes and tin whistle enmesh with Western’s toasted vocal hooks atop a leafy bed of acoustic guitars and a slackened beat. Exploring Western’s “cycle of falling from my perch of calm stasis into the ether of obsession and clawing my way back”, ‘Amends’ traces a journey of fixation, reconciliation and acceptance. (Hazel Blacher)

The Great Unwashed — ‘I Do Try’

The Great Unwashed are most likely your favourite Manchester band’s favourite Manchester band. Westside Cowboy, Holly Head and Shaking Hand have all gone out of their way to sing their praises over the last few months. It’s not hard to see why. Second single ‘I Do Try’ builds on the hypnotic post-rock sound of their debut single ‘Unfold’, but leans into much more tender arenas. Delicate, bluesy guitar arrangements amble and stretch across the first five minutes of the track before giving way to a downpour of thunderous noise, recalling some of Mogwai’s finer set pieces. Reuben Monroe’s voice added a beautiful texture to their first single, but here his introspective musings play a much bigger role in guiding the song through. It’s a significant leap forward from a group who were already making some of the most interesting noises in the city. (Marty Hill)

Henry Webb-Jenkins – ‘Fun Around Here’

Henry Webb-Jenkins stakes his claim as one of the best authentic voices in modern British country music. Not mired in the mush of modern country rock or its drably sentimental flipside, ‘Fun Around Here’ has more in common with the rollicking snap of sixties and seventies outlaw country, though it shaves the gratuitous posturing that has been difficult to escape in that subgenre. The result is a crisp and tight and dangerously catchy, embellished by Webb-Jenkins’ poised vocals and illustrious pedal steel talents. (Lloyd Bolton)

Los Bitchos – ‘Is This Real’

At their core, London based quartet Los Bitchos have always been a ‘dance band’ for the good times. On their new spin-off single ‘Is This Real’, the 4-piece party starters have made quite the pivot from the psychedelic cumbia and globally influenced funk they’ve come to be known for. Perfect for Balearic summer nights, the newest offering from Los Bitchos replaces sun-kissed instrumental cumbia for euro-dance, marrying trance and tech-house textures. A band that we all need, especially in these trying times when the news is all doom and gloom, Los Bitchos are now not just dominating the balmy festival mainstage on sweltering summer days, but with ‘Is This Real’, they’re here to take over the late night club raves, too. (Brad Sked)

Upupayāma – ‘Fliim’

Fittingly released via seminal imprint Fuzz Club Records, Parma-based psych maestro Upupayāma – the moniker of multi-instrumentalist Alessio Ferarri – has unleashed another psychotropic brew upon our mortal realm with mind-melter ‘Fliiim’. Akin to a shaman led ceremony, where one is being pulled into a paroxysm of hysteria, ‘Fliiim’ is a groove-heavy, rhythmic riot that wonderfully blends a Fela Kuti-esque Afrobeat with a Can-like cadence. This is enveloped in a herculean fuzz-frenzy feast, evoking the riff-rainstorms of Swedish warlocks Goat. Real mind-blowingly glorious stuff from one of the most underrated names in the world of psychedelia right now. ‘Fliiim’ arrives ahead of Upupayāma’s upcoming new album ‘Honest Flowers’, due for release on May 29th. (Brad Sked)

Wax Head – ‘GNAT’

From their debut full length ‘GNAT’, released via Sour Grapes last week, pummeling Manchester garage-punks Wax Head recently shared the body-blistering 90 second titular single ‘GNAT’. Evoking John Dwyer’s frantic garage frenzy from his Coachwhips years and modern-titans Thee Oh Sees, ‘GNAT’ makes for a brilliantly broiling fever dream. It’s a succinct, breakneck brain-battering of a single, where the quartet are relentless in their pursuit to seemingly turn the listener into nothing but liquified pulp. Alongside their debut album, Wax Head will be heading across the UK, including a hometown stop in Manchester at SOUP on the 24th April and a visit to London’s The George Tavern on the 28th May. (Brad Sked)