Articles - Caitlin Chatterton

Clash Magazine

After interning with Clash at the end of 2023 I continued to write live reviews and artist features for the site.

Clash Magazine • 17th April 2024

Moving Home: Alice Phoebe Lou Interviewed

When Saturn completes its first orbit of the earth in your lifetime, returning to the place in the sky where it witnessed your birth approximately three decades earlier, astrologists and horoscope enthusiasts will warn you that seismic change is afoot. For Alice Phoebe Lou, that rings true. “Moments like turning 30 are naturally a time where you reflect a lot,” the South African-born singer muses, recalling her birthday last July. “That reflection can be dark, difficult and self-destructive, but

Clash Magazine • 29th February 2024

Looking Forward, Looking Back: Miya Folick Interviewed

“All the things that I’m going through and writing about right now will feel like ancient history in two years,” Miya Folick, reclining in her seat, says thoughtfully. “It’s like going through your old journal.”

The LA-based artist is at home, working on her next record ahead of a string of upcoming live dates. Among them is a headline show at Lafayette and a run of opening slots for Mitski in May, coinciding with the first birthday of her latest album ‘ROACH’. “With Mitski I’m truly a fan,” Mi

Clash Magazine • 25th January 2024

Live Report: Gia Ford - The Lower Third, London

Suited, booted, and painted in shades of vintage androgyny, Sheffield’s Gia Ford has spent the last few years building her world of darkly cinematic lullabies. In March she’s joining confessional chameleon Marika Hackman on tour, before heading to Brighton’s melting pot music festival The Great Escape in May.

Tonight though, she’s headlining The Lower Third: tucked within the labyrinth of venues beneath Tottenham Court Road’s immersive lights exhibition and, somewhat confusingly, behind a bar o

Clash Magazine • 4th January 2024

Next Wave #1153: Heartworms

For Jojo Orme – known both for her gothic post-punk stylings and love of military aircraft – succeeding in music has been a long-deserved, hard-earned passion project. Born in London but raised in the rural pastures of Gloucestershire, she moved back to the capital for uni, making the regular trek from her home in Tooting Broadway to her job in the cloakroom at Camden’s Roundhouse. “Every time I did something, like work at Roundhouse, I thought it was such a big thing,” she remembers fondly. “I

Clash Magazine • 2nd January 2024

Next Wave #1152: His Lordship

“It wasn’t a good idea to start a band during the pandemic,” James Walbourne says ruefully. “I wouldn’t advise it!” He’s talking about His Lordship, a duo project with Kristoffer Sonne born from the expanses of spare time brought on by lockdown. The pair met in 2014 working on Chrissie Hynde’s solo album; “We were just slung in together and we’ve been firm friends ever since,” James grins. “It was as simple as that.”

Their self-titled debut album is set for arrival in January, and is the culmin

Clash Magazine • 15th December 2023

Next Wave #1151: VLURE

VLURE are gathered round the green room’s snack table, the twangs of a soundcheck punctuating our conversation. The Glaswegian five-piece – who’ve been up since six this morning to travel the length of the country – are hours away from headlining the 100 Club, Oxford Street’s iconic underground room.

“This is a bucket list venue, for sure,” says vocalist Hamish Hutcheson, who’s been buzzing ever since he found out he’d be getting a wireless mic this evening. “It’s steeped in history, and to be

Clash Magazine • 11th December 2023

Live Report: Chappell Roan – Heaven, London

An artist’s debut album is usually a consolidation of their sound to date – perhaps still a little rough around the edges, and often with a fair amount of potential still to live up to. It’s rare that they produce a fully-realised pageant of twirling, technicolour club hits and heart wrenching ballads – unless you’re Chappell Roan, the rhinestone and fringe-clad supernova whose ‘The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess’ made a late-game bid for one of 2023’s best records.

The theme for her first

Clash Magazine • 7th December 2023

Creating Space To Grow: mxmtoon Interviewed

“I certainly did not think I’d ever do curling when coming to London,” Maia grins, perched under a heat lamp outside the Coal Drops Yard pop-up. “But hey, first time for everything!”

The trio of plastic lanes are lit up in neon and nestled beneath the fairy lights of the yard – a festive destination for tourists, corporate team building groups and, this evening, Californian soft-pop singers on a photo shoot. Maia – the 23-year-old behind mxmtoon – doesn’t have long to soak in the capital’s Chri

Clash Magazine • 29th November 2023

Out In Nature: Laura Misch Interviewed

For saxophonist and producer Laura Misch, the regimented, sound-panelled box of the recording studio was beginning to feel claustrophobic. On debut album ‘Sample The Sky’ she broke out – literally. Armed with a preamp, looper, delay pedal and zoom on a ‘pedal belt’, she was able to play and record tracks outside. “The concept was Lara Croft, but she has a zoom instead of a gun!” Laura grins through the screen of our video call. .

Her saxophone days began as a small-scale rebellion against the s

Clash Magazine • 22nd November 2023

The Japanese House Flips ABBA's 'Super Trouper'

The Japanese House has today released her new EP, ‘ITEIAD Sessions’.

The six-track record collects already-heard live recordings of her album singles ‘Sad to Breathe’, ‘Touching Yourself’, ‘Sunshine Baby’ and ‘One for sorrow, two for Joni Jones’. It also features a brand

new live version of ‘Boyhood’.

Surprisingly perhaps, the EP closes with a cover of ABBA’s dancefloor anthem ‘Super Trouper’. Stripped of all the camp keys and backing vocals of the original and Mamma Mia versions, The Japanes

Clash Magazine • 15th November 2023

Next Wave #1147: hemlocke springs

Isimeme ‘Naomi’ Udu was assigned her ‘hemlocke springs’ moniker by a random name generator, though she regrets ever admitting that. “I found out in North Carolina there’s a trail called Hemlock Springs,” she sighs. “I could have fibbed a little, pretend I had this holy spiritual experience on this trail and just had to be named hemlocke. But no, I have to say I pressed a random name generator twice and was like ‘ooh! Cool name!’. A missed opportunity – or I can just start over from scratch and g

Clash Magazine • 8th November 2023

The Chaos And Beauty Of Baby Queen

26-year-old Bella Latham – the brains behind the indie/grunge existentialism of Baby Queen – has charted a career that feels both like a whirlwind and a long time coming. After signing to Polydor via a COVID-era Zoom call, the last two and a bit years have seen the South African born artist curate a cultish following within the so-called Baby Kingdom; produce a vast body of work including 2021’s EP ‘The Yearbook’; feature in Netflix’s viral hit Heartstoppper, and crown it all with the announceme

Clash Magazine • 27th October 2023

Wargasm - Venom

Since debuting in 2019, London duo Wargasm – made up of Sam Matlock and Milkie Way – have carved out a space for themselves among the ranks of nu-metal, alternative rock, and rave-ready electronic beats, their tracks made accessible by some more pop-leaning tendencies. Last year’s EP ‘EXPLICIT: THE MIXXXTAPE’ was an anarchic consolidation of their sound, and paved the way for their debut full-length ‘Venom’.

Scratching into life on ‘Introduction’, the record kicks down the door on its titular t

Clash Magazine • 24th October 2023

Live Report: Sŵn Festival 2023

Every year, Cardiff – a city with a frankly disorientating number of Wetherspoons – plays home to Sŵn Festival, a bumper weekend of brand-new and burgeoning music acts from home and away. It’s a festival that manages to feel intimate despite the extensive programme of acts, and welcomes any and all genres with open arms. This year, thanks to Storm Babet, Sŵn was also at the other end of a severely flooded railway line.

Nearly 20 hours, two over-crowded trains, and one desperately apologetic gua

Clash Magazine • 20th October 2023

Live Report: Cate - Islington Assembly Hall, London

From the camaraderie between herself and the crowd, the familiarity with which they sing the songs along with her, and the fact that both opening acts rejoin her on stage throughout the set, Cate’s show at Islington Assembly Hall vaguely resembles the scene of your mate getting up for a round of karaoke at the pub. Except, of course, the pub in question has an almost 900 capacity, the karaoke set lasts an hour, and your mate is actually a really very good singer.

The Canadian artist’s slice of

Clash Magazine • 18th October 2023

boygenius - the rest

When ‘the record’ arrived at the end of March, it was met with relief from boygenius fans who’d feared 2018’s self-titled EP would be the only output from the supergroup. Ominously branded ‘the rest’, it’s uncertain whether this follow-up offering is simply the remaining tracks penned during their album cycle, or if the end finally is nigh.

As always, the fingerprints of all three band members are visible on this EP. Each a cult powerhouse in their own right, Julien Baker, Lucy Dacus and Phoebe

Clash Magazine • 4th October 2023

Lucia & The Best Boys - Burning Castles

Stepping away from the runways of Alexander McQueen and Charles Jeffrey, Lucia Fairfull – of Lucia & The Best Boys – has slowly been emerging as a key player upon the stage of Glasgow’s theatrical, synth-heavy alt-pop scene. Following a run of EPs since 2017, debut album ‘Burning Castles’ is an ambitious self-portrait, flecked with nods to Lucia’s Scottish heritage and injected with the intensity of feeling that so typically ravages late girlhood.

Although their sound is undoubtedly driven by t

Clash Magazine • 20th September 2023

Samantha Urbani - Showing Up

It’s been ten years since Samantha Urbani split from the buzzy five-piece Friends, and three since she last released a single. She spent the intervening years turning her hand to teaching, DJing, and working in A&R, but personal tragedy – the loss of her friend and collaborator Sam Mehran in 2018 – put the emergency brakes on her writing. It wasn’t until Nick Weiss (Nightfeelings) encouraged her to pick up the pen again that her debut LP took shape. Finally making it to release, ‘Showing Up’ is

Vocal Girls

I joined the Vocal Girls team in 2021; since then I have written album and live reviews as well as artist features and opinion pieces championing underrepresented voices in the music industry.

VOCAL GIRLS • 20th February 2024

Lambrini Girls interview — VOCAL GIRLS

One issue Lambrini Girls have always shouted loud about is the treatment of women and non-binary people, from their avid support of trans rights and ‘FUCK TERFS’ merch to songs like ‘Boys in the Band’, which calls out the toxic culture enabling assault (“Problematic and well connected / But it's still being deflected / Because we separate the art from the artist”). The government’s Misogyny in Music report, published at the end of January, therefore came as little shock to either of them. “Peopl

VOCAL GIRLS • 6th October 2023

GENN: “THERE’S SAFETY IN GIGGING”

An album was “always part of the plan” for Brighton quartet ĠENN, says vocalist Leona Farrugia. “The vision was always there.” We’re parked around a table at London’s Sebright Arms, which is steadily filling up with familiar faces – Leona stands to hug several of them – who have clearly been in the know for a while now. This is a pretty special time to be catching the band: their current set list will soon be usurped by tracks from their upcoming debut, Unum.

“Sometimes you get tangled up in th

VOCAL GIRLS • 27th July 2023

REMEMBERING SINÉAD O’CONNOR: THE BOLD VOICE THAT CHANGED MUSIC

The Irish singer, writer and activist was committed to leaving the world a better place, and that’s exactly what she’ll be remembered for

One of my oldest musical memories is the iPod playlist our dad would put on in the car; a true rolodex of greats. Among the hits from Fleetwood Mac and Dusty Springfield, was Sinéad O’Connor’s astonishing rendition of ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’. Her voice – brimming with anguish far beyond the cognitive grasp of my eight-year-old self – was simply infatuating.

VOCAL GIRLS • 9th June 2023

HEADBOY: ‘WAS IT WHAT YOU THOUGHT’ EP REVIEW

The north London trio are upfront and energetic on their debut EP

Instantly recognisable for their frenetic, feelings-first sound, headboy have spent the last few years steadily gathering their fanbase, aided by a run of live shows and the release of their first singles. They have a knack for bringing emotions into their whirlpool of shoe-gazy post-punk, without the noise ever dimming the intensity of how they’re feeling. Instead, it’s a visceral, clearly cathartic release of energy – and their

VOCAL GIRLS • 27th April 2023

THE LAST DINNER PARTY SERVE A FEAST TO REMEMBER AT SOLD-OUT CAMDEN HEADLINER

Welcoming people into the intimately-sized room, Ellie Bleach offers an understated but charming support slot; she tells us she’s actually thrilled that not a single person at the sold-out show is there for her, because that makes us prime candidates for converting into Ellie Bleach fans. After a well-received performance of the tongue-in-cheek ‘Doing Really Well Thanks’, I’d say she’s been successful.

When the lights dim again, a swell of orchestral fanfare brings the band of the hour to the s

VOCAL GIRLS • 7th April 2023

BILLIE MARTEN: ‘DROP CHERRIES’ ALBUM REVIEW

Plucked from YouTube by Chess Club Records aged sixteen, Yorkshire-born Billie Marten has spent the intervening years evolving her sound. On her latest offering, Drop Cherries, Marten opts largely for acoustic instruments and orchestral strings – a quiet assertion of confidence. It’s easy to visualise the recording of this album live on tape in Somerset and Wales, and, although minimalist, the record thrums with a liveliness befitting its making. Its subject matter – a single relationship held u

VOCAL GIRLS • 27th November 2022

POOLBLOOD: “I FELT LIKE I WAS THIS PERSON THAT PEOPLE HAD TO LEARN TO LOVE”

For me, music is all about connection,” Maryam Said, aka poolblood, muses over Zoom. “I think that’s ultimately what I’m searching for. I’m not really interested in being accepted, but more being able to have someone say that [my music has] helped them understand themselves or feel less alone.” This sense of kinship is what they hope people can take from ‘mole’ - their debut album as poolblood, and a follow up to 2019’s ‘Yummy’ EP. The ambling, bedroom-indie record shows off Maryam’s candid and

VOCAL GIRLS • 3rd August 2022

EFÉ: “ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS HAVE FUN”

At its heart, though, ‘VITAMIN - C’ is still a bedroom pop record, a genre that EFÉ was most influenced by as a teenager. “It seemed like it was music that could be made,” she explains. “It was achievable, because it was very DIY. I thought, ‘oh, I could do that! I could get some friends and do it myself!’.” I ask what music she was into before bedroom pop took over. “A weird mix!”, she says. “Growing up as a child it was Boyz II Men and Michael Jackson, [because] my parents played their music.

VOCAL GIRLS • 15th April 2022

XANA: “I’M ALWAYS MOST EXCITED TO WRITE A BRIDGE OF A SONG"

“I’m nervous, but the excited, butterfly kind of nervous,” Xana grins over Zoom. “I’ve been working on [the album] for so long, so it’s wild that it’s finally coming out!”. The emerging pop personality has been building her audience since the autumn of 2020, when the release of her first single, ‘Goddess’, introduced fans to her own brand of earworm melodies and open-chested lyricism. A string of follow-up singles culminated in the infectious ‘Kitchen Light’ going viral on TikTok; now, ‘Tantrums

VOCAL GIRLS • 19th February 2022

MYCHELLE: “IT’S JUST NICE TO INTERCEPT SOMEONE’S DAY WITH MUSIC.”

Mychelle is a singer, writer, and basketball player whose effortless voice is taking the world by storm. Her debut EP, ‘Closure’, surpassed one million Apple Music streams in little more than six months and made it immediately clear that she was one to watch, despite being made and released in the middle of lockdown. “[The EP] did fill a void,” Mychelle says. “It was really fun, and because it was my first project it was fresh, it was new - I was really excited. So even though [lockdown] was cra

VOCAL GIRLS • 27th January 2022

FRÄULEIN: “WE’RE A LIVE BAND FIRST AND FOREMOST”

Hailing from Northern Ireland and the Netherlands respectively, Fräulein is fronted by Joni on vocals and guitar and Karsten on drums, who synthesise their own brand of alternative rock from a wide pool of influences. Their latest gig was for Get In Her Ears, an organisation that’s championing marginalised genders in music. “I invited two different groups of friends that I hadn’t seen in like six years to come down,” Karsten grins, “it was like a big reunion”. As well as a crowd filled with frie

VOCAL GIRLS • 17th November 2021

PILLOW QUEENS PUT ON A SHOW WITH UNBRIDLED PERSONALITY

The night’s opening set comes from ARXX - a lovable Brighton duo and the first guests featured on the VOCAL GIRLS podcast - who are supporting Pillow Queens ahead of their own show with Rock Against Violence at The Oslo this month. The set is a glorious run through their singles, interspersed with tour bus anecdotes and a contagious warmth.

When Pillow Queens, a quartet hailing from Dublin, take to the stage it’s with ‘Holy Show’, a charming indie-rock slow burn that sees them agonising over pa

VOCAL GIRLS • 3rd October 2021

DODIE BRINGS INTIMATE CONNECTION TO HER BIGGEST SHOW YET

The scale of this legendary venue doesn’t appear to intimidate the 26-year-old singer, who’s dancing barefoot around a stage laid out with bedroom furniture. It’s a fitting set-up - for so many of her fans, this is exactly how they found her: making YouTube videos in her room as they watched from theirs.

That personal connection has defined Dodie’s career, and tonight it’s being celebrated. An impromptu standing ovation takes hold halfway through the show, led by her friends on the balcony. We

VOCAL GIRLS • 14th September 2021

LIVE MUSIC IS BACK, AND SO IS COMMUNITY

Needless to say, it’s been a rough sixteen months for live music. Venues were forced to close their doors when the pandemic first hit, plunging them into financial uncertainty that’s still ongoing. Even with donations and grants, 83% remain at imminent risk of closure, while tens of thousands of jobs have been in danger of disappearing. To pour salt on the wound, the industry has been met with disdain from the arts-averse government - something highlighted by their infamous suggestion that we sh

VOCAL GIRLS • 2nd September 2021

RETURN OF READING AND LEEDS PROVES GUITAR MUSIC ISN’T DEAD

Saturday afternoon started out on a high with rock legends You Me At Six, drawing in a slightly older but no less rowdy audience for music old and new. Then came just enough time for a boozy lunch before Sigrid’s set, followed by the explosive Slowthai, while Becky Hill and Beabadoobee also brought in the crowds.

A ‘quick’ food break - that actually turned out to be a forty minute queue for mac’n’cheese - took us into the evening, when The Wombats proved themselves as festival favourites. The r

VOCAL GIRLS • 5th May 2021

INTRODUCING FUTURE1000: JAGUAR’S MISSION TO EQUALISE THE MUSIC INDUSTRY —

Launching today, the free online course will run from May through to December, offering artist-led, interactive sessions that will equip 1,000 under-18s from minority genders with the training, tools, and mentorship that they need to break into the industry. Accredited by the London College of Music Education, this is an incredible opportunity to join the next generation of music talent.

The programme is also being supported by FutureDJs, who have previously written the DJ course for GCSE Music

VOCAL GIRLS • 2nd May 2021

GIRL IN RED: 'IF I COULD MAKE IT GO QUIET' ALBUM REVIEW —

Marie Ulven, the Norweigan singer-songwriter behind girl in red, has spent the last few years curating her brand of authentic indie-pop, drawing particular attention for her unapologetic queerness. Now, with the release of her debut full-length album, ‘if i could make it go quiet’, she has established her rightful place in the pop world.

In many ways it’s the album you would expect: Marie’s celestial vocals are paired with the same brutally honest lyrics, ripped straight from the pages of her d

VOCAL GIRLS • 8th April 2021

INTRODUCING VIRTUOSO: THE VIRTUAL STAGE FOR MUSIC EDUCATION —

Learn how to DJ with some of the industry’s biggest names.

Virtuoso is an interactive online platform, on a mission to make music education accessible to all. They’re offering courses with renowned DJs, such as ‘How to Rebeef your Records’ with Eats Everything, currently available to access on-demand. Alongside these, they also host incredible free Q&A sessions, with artists that have included Tiffany Calver, Goldie, and Ghetts. It’s an amazing opportunity for young people to interact with esta

VOCAL GIRLS • 9th March 2021

Dame Ethel Smyth — VOCAL GIRLS

After meeting Emmeline Pankhurst in 1910 and establishing a close friendship, Ethel decided to dedicate two years to the Suffragettes. She composed ‘The March of the Women’, which was adopted as their anthem and sung at marches and rallies across the country. She later taught Pankhurst how to throw rocks ahead of a 1912 window smashing campaign; both women were arrested in the aftermath and spent two months in neighbouring cells at Holloway prison. It was there that Ethel’s friend, Thomas Beecha

VOCAL GIRLS • 27th February 2021

OPINION: FEMALE FANS CAN MAKE A MUSICIAN'S CAREER, AND IT’S TIME THEY WERE TAKEN SERIOUSLY —

Perennial sexism in the music industry has often seen female fans stereotyped as hysterical. Rooted in Ancient Greek, ‘hysteria’ has long been used to portray women as somehow innately unstable, and therefore incapable of critical thought. It’s what kept us out of politics for so long, and it’s why our opinions are still being discredited.

The 1960s saw the rise of Beatlemania - excitement expressed by The Beatles’ young female fans. Beatlemania courted the idea of hysterical females by implyin

The Line of Best Fit

I wrote album reviews for The Line of Best Fit from 2021 to 2024, mainly covering pop, alt and rock artists.

The Line of Best Fit • 15th February 2024

Cherym: Take It Or Leave It Review - no holds barred | Punk

The Derry band epitomise the new age, bringing the political as well as the personal and echoing something of Meet Me @ The Altar across the pond. Their earworm 2019 single "Abigail" arrived steeped in vintage pop-punk influences, and was backed up two years later by the Hey Tori EP. Theirs is a sound embedded with nostalgia and fresh air in equal measure, making their eventual full-length debut all the more interesting.

Take It Or Leave It is an apt title for a first album that is, everywhere,

The Line of Best Fit • 9th November 2023

Baby Queen emerges from the trenches of her early twenties on Quarter Life Crisis

The South African-born singer – real name Bella Latham – has curated a signature sound that sees breezy indie pop writhing in satirical nihilism; on her long-awaited full-length, it’s clear nothing has changed. It’s a reputation somewhat at odds with Heartstopper, a determinedly rose-tinted and (if you’re over the age of 21, at least) occasionally farcical representation of being LGBTQ+ in secondary school. Still, four of Baby Queen’s songs made it to the soundtrack of season two: “We Can Be Any

The Line of Best Fit • 4th October 2023

Dorian Electra deserves a world of acclaim for Fanfare

Though, to be fair, their first two albums had already made that pretty clear. 2019’s Flamboyant was a thumping, glittering pickaxe to masculinity, paving the way for the opulent absurdity of 2020’s My Agenda. Their eclectic sound earned them the slightly ham-fisted term ‘hyperpop’ alongside the likes of Charli XCX and SOPHIE, but really their sound is resistant to any such labelling. Spanning time, space, and several sticky dance floors, their music offers a cutting social commentary set to a m

The Line of Best Fit • 13th September 2023

FIZZ let loose on gleeful debut The Secret To Life

“I get the feeling that lately you’ve been looking for something to inspire you”, says a smoothly robotic voice, atop a wobbling track of perfectly infuriating hold music. “Something to lift you up and get you out of that funk / an escape from reality.” Her prescribed remedy? The Secret To Life, a record made purely for the hell of it. Following that introduction on “A New Phase Awaits You”, the album begins proper with its titular track: a dopamine-injected racket of raucous percussion, jazzy p

The Line of Best Fit • 24th August 2023

Hot Milk party through the pain on A CALL TO THE VOID

A CALL TO THE VOID is a record laced with anthemic choruses and mosh-pit-ready beat drops that rails against the suffocating nature of the human condition.

Ever stood atop something really high, peered over the edge, and realised that nothing could physically stop you from leaping off? That discovery of human fragility – neatly dubbed l’appel du vide by the French – is what inspired Hot Milk’s Hannah Mee and James Shaw to pen their debut album. Formed in 2018, the duo gained popularity for th

The Line of Best Fit • 16th August 2023

Unreal, Unearth is a characteristically charming third instalment from Hozier

Andrew Hozier-Byrne’s first and self-titled album led with the unexpected runaway hit “Take Me To Church” – a deceptively radio-friendly protest against the Catholic Church that overshadowed a debut packed with treasures, and was still obscuring reactions to his sophomore offering Wasteland, Baby! five years on. His cult following, however, was cemented by that second record; his croons of rage and adoration earned him the status of beloved woodland man in chief.

Unreal, Unearth begins with the

The Line of Best Fit • 12th July 2023

EVERGREEN is a victory lap for PVRIS’ evolved sound

“No one gives a damn shit 'less you're dead / or you're seventeen”, Gunnulfsen laments on EVERGREEN’s closing, titular track. The shimmering number – railing against the industry's habit of sensationalising youth and flash-in-the-pan success – circles back to the frustration of opening song “I DON’T WANNA DO THIS ANYMORE”. The title and chorus don’t exactly suggest a new album cycle is at the top of Gunnulfsen’s wish list, but it quickly becomes apparent that this is a record made on her terms.

The Line of Best Fit • 8th June 2023

Niall Horan offers few surprises on The Show

Up and down the country, if not across the world, mums have been heard to whisper it: “Niall was always my favourite”. Perhaps due to Horan’s status as the only One Direction member without tattoos, it also points to the undeniable: Horan is a likeable guy. That personality went a fair way in carrying his first two albums – both solid, if middle-of-the-road pop projects. Still, 2017’s Flicker took Horan to the top of the US and Irish charts, while 2020’s Heartbreak Weather delivered his first UK

The Line of Best Fit • 18th May 2023

Broken By Desire To Be Heavenly Sent proves Lewis Capaldi had nothing to worry about

Caricatured as the heartbroken court jester, Lewis Capaldi has mastered a very Adele-coded juxtaposition: pairing self-deprecating, bone dry humour with a catalogue of startlingly earnest, determinedly woeful love ballads. The formula proved a hit in 2019, when Capaldi became a household name and his debut album, Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent, remained glued to the UK Top Ten for sixty eight weeks. The bigger the hype, though, the higher the pressure on a second instalment. Capaldi evi

The Line of Best Fit • 4th April 2023

HMLTD bring their ambitious vision to life on The Worm

The product of two years’ work and almost fifty collaborators, The Worm is an album as eclectic as its influences: from the Neon Genesis Evangelion anime to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales; Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” to Nina Simone’s “Sinnerman”. Overarching its jazz, gospel, and spoken word components, there’s a natural theatricality to this record that feels reminiscent of a West End soundtrack – a testament to HMLTD’s world-building skills.

The “Worm God” (interchangeably referred to as “the W

The Line of Best Fit • 8th March 2023

MEET ME @ THE ALTAR give pop punk a Gen Z makeover on Past // Present // Future

Its recent resurgence has, thankfully, brought greater diversity: the likes of Nova Twins, Hot Milk, and Meet Me @ The Altar. With them, the unattainable women have been swapped out for discussions of political activism, mental health, and online harassment. The latter inspired “Say It (To My Face)”, the raucous first single that kicks off the album with the eye-rolling lament, “I'm a bitch and my band is an industry plant / 'least that's what it says on the internet.”

The rest of the album del

The Line of Best Fit • 10th February 2023

Truth Decay finds You Me At Six remaining steadfast and fun

There were fears that seven albums would be their lot, but luckily 2021’s SUCKAPUNCH – along with an anniversary re-release of the iconic Sinners Never Sleep – seems to have re-injected enough lifeblood to bring about their eighth offering, Truth Decay.

There’s a tried and tested recipe for a You Me banger: simply add one earworm riff to a soaring chorus; finish off with an angst-driven bridge. The band obviously know this, and the opening single “Deep Cuts” feels like a hit moulded from musc

The Line of Best Fit • 2nd November 2022

Loud Without Noise is a triumphant next instalment from CRAWLERS

At least, if you’re familiar with TikTok, you’ll have come across the catchy middle eight from “Come Over (Again)” that went viral and catapulted them to notoriety. Loud Without Noise is their first project since then, tasked with consolidating the band’s success and proving they aren’t just ‘that bridge from TikTok trend’.

The record opens with two of its singles: “I Can’t Drive” and “Fuck Me (I Didn’t Know How To Say)”. “I Can’t Drive” points to the band’s pedigree of grown up emo kids, wit

The Line of Best Fit • 27th October 2022

Dylan offers up post-mortem views on love and relationships with The Greatest Thing I’ll Never Learn

Across this debut mixtape, rock’n’roll influences from a childhood with her dad have diluted to give Dylan’s pop a grittier edge. Laced with snarling guitars and powerful drums, they particularly come into their own on “Blisters,” a lament about unrequited love. Although the track’s pop commitments soften the blow, the chorus is still gut-punching in both its sound and its honesty.

Another standout on the record, “Blue,” is similarly mournful despite boasting an anthemic chorus. The slower pace

The Line of Best Fit • 1st October 2022

Shygirl appears effortless on the long-awaited Nymph

Nymph follows her 2020 EP ALIAS - the pulsing powerhouse that marked her out as a queer club heavyweight. Nymph takes a slightly different tack, combining delicate harmonies with sensual lyrics to befit the title in every sense. Her vocals are breezier, sharpening the edges of the restless drum tracks underneath. The new sound hasn’t compromised on depth, though: from the opening bars of “Woe” it’s clear that her maximalist flame’s still bright, returning to old collaborators including Sega Bode

The Line of Best Fit • 23rd September 2022

5 Seconds Of Summer demonstrate a matured self-awareness on 5SOS5

It has, somehow, been a full ten years since 5 Seconds Of Summer put out their debut EP. Somewhere New, the charming four-track record, was followed up by their heady pop-punk-inspired full-length, a resident slot supporting One Direction, and a meteoric rise to cult status not seen since, well, One Direction. A decade down the line, the boys are almost unrecognisable. Just as the sweeping fringes and boxes of hair dye have given way to curly mops, the bright-eyed simplicity of that first projec

The Line of Best Fit • 15th September 2022

FLETCHER finally falls in love with herself on Girl of My Dreams

Taylor Swift might have been dubbed the queen of break-up songs, but she’s got nothing on Cari Fletcher. Heartache, healing, clandestine make-ups and complicated feelings have saturated pretty much all her discography to date, and the same broken heart bleeds well into the first half of her Girl Of My Dreams.

The frantic opener “Sting” makes an immediate reference to THE S(EX) TAPES, FLETCHER’s 2020 EP that was made in collaboration with its muse: the ex in question who FLETCHER had chosen to q

The Line of Best Fit • 30th August 2022

YUNGBLUD steps away from the boundaries on third album

This isn’t the first self-titled release from YUNGBLUD - the pink sock, silver chain, and smudged eyeliner wearing caricature of Dominic Harrison. His debut EP in 2018 carried the same name, as did the accompanying unplugged and live versions – he isn’t going back to his roots on this record, though. Rather, his third full-length is the furthest leap yet from the twanging guitars and anarchic energy of his earlier efforts. YUNGBLUD, in this iteration, is a pop album. Alt-pop maybe, but pop all t

The Line of Best Fit • 28th July 2022

Hayley Kiyoko makes a welcome return with second album Panorama

2018 (or #20GayTeen, depending on which corner of the internet you inhabited) saw something amounting to a queer renaissance in mainstream media. As the first seasons of POSE and Queer Eye were hitting our TV screens, and as Love, Simon entered cinemas, music was welcoming exceptional records from the likes of SOPHIE, Troye Sivan, Janelle Monáe, King Princess – you get the idea. Despite such a crowded field, Kiyoko’s Expectations album became a standout, featuring a collaboration with Kehlani as

The Line of Best Fit • 15th June 2022

Nova Twins’ Supernova finds the duo continuing to burn bright

Since releasing their debut album – Who Are The Girls? – in early 2020, Nova Twins have distinguished themselves as determined activists for female, PoC and young musical talent, as well as making impressive inroads into the alt scene with supporting slots for Prophets Of Rage and Bring Me The Horizon. Now, their second release benefits from a cohesive sound already established, and marks them out as one of the most exciting bands on the rise.

Supernova kicks into life with its own high-speed t

The Line of Best Fit • 17th May 2022

SOAK marries honesty with feel good guitar on If I Never Know You Like This Again

SOAK’s first two albums had already established their brand of queer indie-rock befitting a coming-of-age soundtrack, so it wasn’t surprising to hear them featured on episode six of Heartstopper last month. Now, their third record is “the most accurate picture” of themselves to date, written over the long months of the pandemic. “I felt no pressure at all,” they explain. “It was almost like I was ranting as I was writing.” Complete with dreamy guitar bends, gorgeous harmonies, and a candid lyric

The Line of Best Fit • 16th May 2022

Harry’s House invites you to look closer at one of pop’s biggest icons

At this point, it pretty much goes without saying that any new album, by any artist, was born from a period of pandemic-prescribed navel gazing. Of course it was. But for a globe-trotting giant who hasn’t stepped off the hamster wheel since his first musical tribute to Stevie Wonder at sixteen, the emergency brake must have been especially jarring. “You’re no good alone,” Harry Styles seems to have concluded from his time away, gently reminding himself, and us, on the second verse of his hit ret

The Line of Best Fit • 30th March 2022

Pillow Queens exhibit an understated confidence on sophomore album Leave The Light On

The Irish quartet have always been pretty exceptional at making main character music; think fireside evenings with friends and roof-down road trips in summer. It’s why their feature on the coming-of-age Dating Amber soundtrack made so much sense, and it’s a spirit that’s kept alive throughout their most recent project. On Leave The Light On, their sound is cohesive without being one note; they take their time without labouring the point.

The record opens with the thumping heartbeat on “Be By Yo

Delilah Magazine

In my second year at UCL I founded Delilah Magazine: an online music platform focused on making student journalism accessible and approachable, as well as making the most of the music scene in London. As Founding President I designed and built the website, and oversaw the commissioning, editing, and publication of all our digital and social media content. In my third year I also produced the first two physical editions of the magazine, and collaborated with the events company native.fm to promote their end-of-year music event for UCL students.