March 2025 : Some of the people that get mentioned in this monthly round up of new bands and new tunes may never be heard of again. History has taught us however, that this is not always the case.
Keith Goldhanger has been out and about again and provides a brief selection of music you may (or may not) want to be included in your lives.Â
What do we want? More bands that no one else we know will like. When do we want them?
We’ve already got them….again…another list of new bands it’s felt should be listened to is being drafted. There’s a lot going on out there.
Three months into the year and for those of us in East London it’s becoming a year that’s being defined by free gigs (or cheap gigs) by bands that one may have to Google in advance to have some idea of what they sound like. Some people, somewhere have realised that in order to get a hundred people inside our favourite small venues on a wet Monday night then providing free shows hosting weird and wonderful bands containing weird and wonderful people is the best way forward.Â
Some of our new favourite bands have been introduced to us already this year. Many of them may never reach the giddy heights of standing inside a 400-capacity venue with a huge merchandise stall in the corner however we’re always reminded that we could be wrong. History has taught one or two of us recently that bands we loved at first sight but didn’t think anyone else would like have elevated themselves to much greater things. Dry Cleaning and Sleaford Mods are two bands at least one of us would never have believed we’d be watching on huge stages one day despite the love we felt for them when they first entered our lives (and still do of course). Benefits may be coming up on the inside rail to join these, bands such as Idles and Big Special we always believed were shoe in’s for where they are today and those old enough may remember the first time The Birthday Party arrived in the UK. As great as our introduction was to this band no one really considerd that a few decades later their singer would be entertaining thousands inside huge arenas.
Who knows where this will lead with these bands being thrown your way here and everywhere (mainly East London at the moment) that one feels may require your attention? It’s hoped that the massive music loving public will embrace what’s going on at the present time as much as some of us are here at the moment. Maybe one of us will look back in a couple of years time questioning one’s mindset during the early stages of 2025. Stepping back a few feet one could suggest that this is the sound track that matches the fucked up chaotic, confusing world we find ourselves in at the present time and may one of suggest that we haven’t had such challenging music for quite sometime (or have we ?).Â
Exhibit one (above) : Fat Concubine, a trio featuring a Colombian and someone who tells us is from Mars (the third member wasn’t approached). Of course they are….. A face masked, fist pumping figure standing behind a desk providing electronics and beats that sound like someone banging nails into a wall whilst a figure at the front shouts and screams alongside a guitarist keeping everything so simple one believes could be replaced by anyone if he happens to miss his train to a gig one night. We’re Gonna Bring This World Down (above) is a great start. The next step would be to attend a show yourselves. It probably won’t make a lot of sense but that’s what some of us are searching for. The reason we all got into music in the first place was the satisfaction of being confused, intrigued and for many, the urge to join in. ‘If these people can achieve this, anyone can’ has been a mindset from the beginning. Bands such as Fat Concubine, MPTL Microplastics and Bathing Suits are replicating the sound that bands John Peel would play late at night (Adopts John Peel voice and says something like ‘…and this is Festering Puss by Rancid Hell Spawn) whilst teenagers listened under the bed covers, feeling a million miles away from the real world never mind from where (or why?) music like this was being hatched. If you can’t come away from a show in 2025 asking yourselves ‘What the fuck was that I’ve just witnessed?’ then you’re probably going to the wrong shows. You don’t have to like this but it’s good to challenge yourselves. It goes without saying that a few of us who enjoy entering our favourite small venues on a wet Monday night bloody love this nonsense.
This is Bathing Suits from Leeds (featured pic – top of this page) – Who have recently been gracing the stages of some of the small venues we love to visit – more to come from these in a bit but just get your head around this first before one of us decides to ease you slowly into a monstrous collection of music they have been serving up recently.
MPTL Microplastics are one of the strangest outfits some of us have seen recently. Their confusing but compelling live show certainly makes a change from the conveyor belt of Indy-Rock bands dreaming of Donnington or Glastonbury headline slots. Their live shows are as chaotic and compelling as those early Mercury Rev shows and records. Swell Maps and Virgin Prunes (if a gap ever existed in between the New Form of Beauty records and If I Die I Die then this is what it would have sounded like) come to mind. They seem to be playing some odd instruments that we may not have seen before, there’s also a cello, a six stringed bass and a lute. It’s hypnotic, restrained….a bit weird and a treat to experience live.
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Tiss Vampiric made us ask ourselves if our Tuesday night experience in London’s West End was terrible or inspiring? A day or two later we still couldn’t work this band out though which is a better place to be than having watched other stuff recently that was so bad we didn’t even bother to check out the bands content when we got home. Tiss Vamperic boasts the best bowl cut you’ll see all year and maybe the most Gothy, Goth band that aren’t really a Goth band you’ll experience this side of 1985. As London prepares for Gavin Friday’s return soon (He of Virgin Prunes who get mentioned a second time on this page) it transpires that this is another welcome discovery. A different weird to what’s been thrown this way recently (who knows… maybe these bands all know each other ?- that’s a scary thought).
This is also a band you may need to spend more than five minutes getting used to. Recalling the nights we first saw HMLTD or Walt Disco this is a band some of us are happy to encourage, a band at least one of us is still listening to whilst performing our daily chores and yet again a band that are providing original music that chin stroking (Later) with Jools Holland viewers would probably dislike immensely. Not terrible at all – in fact a lot better than a majority of stuff we can find ourselves standing in front of when we should be at home thinking of having an early night. It may have taken a while to digest but yes…a thumbs up from here was finally given. Check them out.
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The daddy of all this brilliant strangeness are US band Model/Actriz who have gone before our very eyes not once but twice around different parts of Brockwell Park in South London over the past couple of years (Wide Awake Festival, of course). These are slowly becoming a band that are attracting decent crowds and could provide a path for the above UK bands to travel down.
Back to more conventional sounding tunes and Jodie Langford from Hull has provided another marvellous tune that sits perfectly with previous releases (Foefetti, I Miss it, Get the Shots in) that are all worth checking out.
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Avalanche Party wetted our appetite with Ecstasy which was enough to direct one or two of us towards their Der Traum Uber Alles album. It feels as though this five piece from Yorkshire have been with us for a while now and these huge anthems the band are currently serving up deserve your attention and deserve to be heard in much larger venues than they can be heard in currently. It’s a superb album that sounds even better live. Not a band to be ignored.
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Kerala Dust sent over a new tune Bell this month and follows a superb album Violet Drive released and briefly mentioned two years ago following a memorable performance at the 1500 capacity KOKO in London at the time of the album’s release. A flutter of the heart strings was experienced on the arrival of this new tune and on first listen at least one of us was smitten again. The band are from London but based in Berlin and one still feels privileged to have experienced this band live when they played here. This new tune did not disappoint.
Wanting to find out more about a band called We Hate You Please Die makes life a bit awkward when sending out Emails with their name in the subject line. Effortless, Garage-Post Punk sounding tunes that come at the listener fast and furious gave those of us watching a thrill a minute ride when they appeared in London recently. Recent album Chamber Songs is worth investigating. The trio are from Rouen in France – start here if the band are as unfamiliar with you as they were for one or two of us until March 2025.
Contact your new favourite bands as follows;
MPTL Microplastics – here
Bathing Suits – here
Tiss Vampiric – here
Model/Actriz – here
Jodie Langford – here
Avalanche Party-Â here
Kerala Dust – here
We Hate You Please Die –here
More new music next month
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Words by Keith Goldhanger. More writing by Keith on Louder Than War can be found at his author’s archive. You can also find Keith on Facebook Instagram and Bluesky
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