When the members of Adult DVD first started experimenting with synths the Leeds-based band had zero expectations as to where it would take them. Now signed to Fat Possum Records, their debut album Adult DVD, establishes their landing point, an irreverent new voice existing in the space between electronic euphoria and spiky hardcore energy.

Both unique in their approach and thrilling in impact, the band’s music has been shown love by Stereogum, Rolling Stone UK and The Line of Best Fit among others. Their breakout moment came with the single “Bill Murray,” an incessantly catchy distillation of people on the internet believing Tom Hanks and Bill Murray are the same person. More recently, the glitchy and anthemic “Real Tree Lee” was an A-list record at BBC 6Music and had support from BBC Radio 1.

At both Brighton’s The Great Escape and SXSW in Austin this year the band were championed as one of the buzziest acts of the festival with snaking queues of people waiting hours to see them perform . A relentless touring schedule in 2025 saw them hone their status as festival headliners in waiting, picking up a global army of new fans and playing to huge crowds at Glastonbury, Green Man, End Of The Road and more. The band recently toured Japan where they were greeted by fans in homemade Adult DVD merch, played a series of sold-out shows and saw posts about their performances go viral with millions of views.

In the making of their exhilarating debut album, vocalist Harry Hanson and synth-player Greg Lonsdale, alongside Danny Blackburn (guitar/synth), Jake Williams (synth), Jonathan Newell (drums), and George Manson (bass), went harder on what was already working for them: witty observational songwriting based in real-life characters and a pulsating synth-punk sound perfect for both the rave and the mosh pit. Fusing together an intense musical workout with depictions of a motley crew of figures ranging from 5G conspiracy theorists to an existential cowboy, Adult DVD is the electrifying sound of a band exceeding their own expectations while going just as hard, if not harder than their adrenaline-fuelled live shows.

On Adult DVD Hanson and Lonsdale continue to take a screenwriter’s approach to songwriting, filling their lyrics with stories pulled from the outskirts of society yet painting a vivid and comic picture of modern Britain. “We don't take things too seriously,” Lonsdale explains. “The lyrics have got sillier, the songs have got sillier. We make music for people to enjoy, so let them have a laugh.”

Produced by the band at The Nave Studios Leeds , the general theme of the album is to let go and take life a little less seriously. “Cowboy On Aisle Three” conjures an image of a wrangler swapping the rodeo for a supermarket over a swaggering synth riff . It’s an EQ-pushing beast that merges an existential crisis with the band’s playful spirit and relentless pursuit of bangers. Speaking about the song, Hanson says: “I came up with the idea when I was in Lidl. I’m sure everyone has thought, ‘Imagine if I just went nuts now,’ to get out of doing the big shop.”

Adult DVD might favour fiction over facts but that’s not to say these songs don’t tap into something real. Album opener “Do As I Please” unpicks the myth of community spirit and zeroes in on the post-pandemic sensation of the self-serving individual. “World’s Best Boss,” meanwhile, rages against authority figures warped by tiny amounts of power (“I’m shaking your hand just because I get paid”) and the importance of establishing an identity outside work. Another hit of pure unbridled energy, the industrial clatter of “Jesus Christ Supercar” finds the band taking aim at life’s bullshitters all too quick to explain away their lack of adventure. It stands as the opposite to their song “Do Something,” one of a few occasions when Adult DVD tips its cap to the band’s older material. “‘Do Something’ was about somebody trying things,” Lonsdale explains. “‘Jesus Christ Supercar’ is about always putting an excuse in the way.”

Simmering with boredom, wasted time, scams and a preoccupation with death and sex, the Adult DVD universe is a place to escape to and also get lost. These are songs that untangle the complicated ways in which people find themselves living, mining both laughter and energy from thinking. “There isn't that much down time on the album,” Hanson says in reference to its pulsating energy and high BPM count. “It's got harder in both directions. It’s like the EPs but on steroids.”

Adult DVD closes with a two song salvo that pushes things to new heights. “Real Tree Lee” shows what happens when questioning the truth leads to falling down the “cretin side” of the internet and into a bog of conspiracy theories. “I remember my mate from school whose dad used to make his own diesel in his shed,” says Lonsdale. “There was another guy who had loads of guns, too. We were interested in writing about these old boys with wild shit going on and where they go when they spend too much time online.”

“Rolling Face”—an acid house exploration of a wild night out that ends with its main character out of his mind — brings the album to a close. Its frantic pace, heavy breakbeats, and chanted vocals captures the band’s pulsating live show, concluding a journey that hurtles out of the screen and into real life. “The album starts in the evening and by the end of it, it's like it’s 3am,” says Hanson.

That release, from the twin streams of mundanity and chaos of modern life, makes Adult DVD one of the most entertaining and essential albums of the year. 

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1.⁠ ⁠Do As I Please
2.⁠ ⁠Coffin Dodger
3.⁠ ⁠Cold Caller
4.⁠ ⁠Minimal Criminal
5.⁠ ⁠Jesus Christ Supercar
6.⁠ ⁠Cowboy On Aisle Three
7.⁠ ⁠The Steaks Are High

Side B
8.⁠ ⁠World’s Best Boss
9.⁠ ⁠All I Need
10.⁠ ⁠Ghillie Suit
11.⁠ ⁠Real Tree Lee
12.⁠ ⁠Rolling Face

Through Ignorance, Lindeman has remade what The Weather Station sounds like, using the occasion of a new record to create a novel sonic landscape, tailor-made to express an emotional idea. Ignorance is sensuous, ravishing, as hi-fi a record as Lindeman has ever made, breaking into pure pop at moments, at others a dense wilderness of notes; a deeply rhythmic and painful record that feels more urgent and clear than her work ever has.

Ignorance began when Lindeman became obsessed with rhythm; specifically straight rhythm, dance rhythm, those achingly simple beats that had never showed up on a Weather Station album before. The album marks Lindeman’s first experience writing on keyboard, not guitar, and her first time building out arrangements before bringing them to a band. Montreal producer Marcus Paquin (Arcade Fire) co-produced, with Lindeman, and also mixed the record.

The lyrics across Ignorance roil with conflict. The narrator confronts characters who turn away from love. “I used to be an actor, now I’m a performer,” Lindeman says. In those roles she often finds herself to be the subject of projection, reflecting back the ideas and emotions of others. In turn, the album cover shows Lindeman laying in the woods, wearing a hand made suit covered in mirrors. Throughout Ignorance, she sings of trying to wear the world as a kind of ill fitting, torn garment, dangerously cold; “it does not keep me warm / I cannot ever seem to fasten it” and of walking the streets in it, so disguised and exposed. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The jazzy instrumentation and orchestration behind the vocals may indicate something a lot less melodic than the sum of the Weather Station's parts, but the end result is a brilliantly balanced mix of slow lounge, funky soul and classic indie-rock song structure. A beguiling but enduringly deep listen.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Robber
2. Atlantic
3. Tried To Tell You
4. Parking Lot
5. Loss

Side B
1. Separated
2. Wear
3. Trust
4. Heart
5. Subdivisions

Philadelphia based noise punks, Empath, featuring members of Perfect Pussy and Waxahatchee, write songs like communing with nature, bringing all their fuzzed and tripped out idiosyncrasies into harmony.

Empath began in 2016 when Garrett Koloski, Emily "Jem" Shanahan, and Catherine Elicson moved into a house in West Philadelphia together, with Randall Coon joining shortly after. Even with the simple vision to shred, there’s a natural sensitivity in the way Empath communicates. Between the contrast of Elicson’s lush, almost delicate vocals, Koloski’s boisterous drumming, and the half-harmonious wash of guitar and Shanahan and Coon’s synths, Empath equips us with a healthy dose of emotional repose. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Mixing all the best bits of shimmering synth-pop, clashing garage rock and grooving riot grrrl drive, Empath effortlessly smash out a confident and accomplished debut, brilliantly accomplished but never too serious to smile.

TRACK LISTING

1. Soft Shape
2. Pure Intent
3. Hanging Out Of Cars
4. Roses That Cry
5. Rowing
6. Heaven
7. IV
8. Decor
9. Rodeo Fever

In the 1990’s Royal Trux established themselves as one of the greatest rock groups of that hallowed era. With albums of extrasensory scope ranging from 1990s Twin Infinitives (which belongs to the special category of albums whose impact may take decades to be measured), to 1993’s Cats and Dogs (with its seamless blend of classic roots, grunge, and punk) to 2000’s Pound for Pound (inhabiting a well-worn coat of southern hard-rock boogie), they reinvented the group concept born with the Rolling Stones (whose music inspired the duo with a definitive template with which to fuck), accepting nothing less than “The World’s Greatest Rock and Roll band” as an opening proposition!

Jennifer Herrema (vocals, moog, guitar, melodica, sticks and stones, pots and pans) and Neil Hagerty (vocals and guitarist) were both in the Washington, D.C. area where they met and, as teenagers, formed Royal Trux while living in an abandoned warehouse space near the New York Avenue bridge a few miles from Union Station. The name was an evocation of their omnidirectional headspace and abilities — plus, Jennifer grew up skateboarding, moving to roller skating after removing the trux and wheels off her board grafting them onto a pair of skates, giving her an unequaled ability to maneuver . . . even then, it was all about the TRUX. The idea was to play with what little equipment and resources they had and make the most of it by starting musically with the simplicity of blues progressions. The blues also happened to fit the bill for a band called “Pussy Galore” that recruited Hagerty to fill the position of guitarist and tutor (teaching them all how to play the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street album) in exchange for money, equipment and a place to stay in New York. The move to NYC (Jennifer into the YMCA, Neil with the band) was fortuitous, but the perceived similarities between the two acts weren’t much beyond initial chord progressions and of course the unmistakable sound of Hagerty’s unparalleled guitar style. The Trux walked a different talk, one with a more elusive, at times counter-intuitive attitude. Hagerty and Herrema were by nature loners, drug abusers and intellectuals; they stood out among the many art school “bands” in NYC in the late 80s. Playing with a revolving cast of freaks, fellow-travelers, and influences allowed them to discard the tradition of a “band” with “members.” Listening to the records nobody else cared to play anymore, they chose to stake out a post no-wave stance shot through with aspects of classic New Yorkia — Godz, Lovin’ Spoonful, Lou Reed and Television all fit the bill — sifting it through in a personal manner that eventually became known as the “lo-fi” genre. In this tactile fashion, they gained notoriety for their unconventional music and ideas, presenting themselves at live shows and elsewhere with an aesthetic marked by indifference and debauchery.

Royal Trux’s first tangible music releases were a song credited to them on Pussy Galore’s Right Now LP (“Fix-It”) (1987) and two tracks, “Luminous Dolphin” and “Cut You Loose,” (1988) on a ROIR cassette compilation . . . but it was the end of 1988 that saw them release their own, self-titled LP for not much more than $500. With no label or distribution in place it was the music that propelled their trajectory (not money, nepotism, or connections) — this was what it took to launch new beginnings in the music world/landscape at that time. Not long after, Drag City and Domino came calling, and an attempt to dominate worldwide was undertaken. Up through 1995, via several records, tours, a film (What is Royal Trux?) and a relentless promotion campaign (including placing their “art” as TV adverts on the sci-fi network and others), their portfolio expanded, leading to a contract with Virgin Records, who evaluated them to be necessary listening on a big-time level. It could only have been done with fresh eyes and ears and the understanding that new realms of possibility could be accessed by Truxian imagination and vision.

After signing with Virgin in 1994 for a three-album stint, Royal Trux began calling themselves the “World’s Greatest Royal Trux Boogie Band.” Who could argue with that? Few even knew what it meant. After the Virgin albums they returned to Drag City with a diverse series of sounds on Accelerator, Veterans of Disorder and Pound for Pound. As always, they were open for business and taking offers, confronting the world from where they stood on the street, and seeking to jack it for all they could. Over a decade has passed and the pair’s music continues to sound just as progressive, vital, and confounding. Beyond the genre-setting and –defying music and the genius of Hagerty’s playing, they were fronted by a willfully non-archetypal female singer whose stance became it’s own archetype over the years, as the world caught on to the need for a new breed. Subsequently, a generation of females looked to Jennifer Herrema for inspiration, emulation and commodification.

When they finally parted ways- following the release of Pound for Pound in 2000 - they did so just as they do everything: spectacularly. Their hiatus lasted 15 years, with little to no communication between them in the interim. It was to their fans enormous surprise - and delight - that they announced a run of new shows in 2015. Shortly after the release of their live album Platinum Tips + Ice Cream in 2017, they inked a new deal with veritable Mississippi indie Fat Possum. As part of that deal, earlier recordings from Royal Trux were reissued, many of which had been absent from streaming services. With the catalog readily available, and the appetite for the live shows undiminished, Jennifer and Neil recorded White Stuff - their first new material in in 19 years- on the industrial fringes of Los Angeles in the summer of 2018. The new music delivers all of the intoxicating alchemy one would expect from Royal Trux. Their lengthy recording break has done nothing to diminish their visionary, visceral intensity and enduring influence.

Royal Trux have done as much to define the look, attitude and sound of rock & roll as any other group in the rock & roll era. This is due to their Bitches Brew approach: “everything in the pot whether you like it or not,” deriving from world music, punk rock, jazz, metal, electronic, southern, teeny-bop and all the rest. In the tradition of the blues, through appropriation and evaluation, Royal Trux changed the way we think of music — it is no surprise that their Truxian language has been further absconded with and recited uncredited for years. Such organic perpetuation only happens with original thought worthy of its own definition. This was and is Royal Trux: innovators and dedicated lifers among the sounds they love. Odds are, whether you know it or not, if you find yourself reading this you’ve been touched by Royal Trux. But only in the right places! 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: From snarling, grungy numbers to propulsive punky drive, Royal Trux have always made their own mark on the world of music, and this, their newest material in almost 2 decades is as visceral and relevant as it's ever been. Superb.

TRACK LISTING

1. White Stuff
2. Year Of The Dog
3. Audacity #2
4. Suburban Junkie Lady
5. Shoes And Tags
6. Sic Em Slow
7. Every Day Swan
8. Whopper Dave
9. Audacity #1
10. Under Ice