Coastal five-piece The Dream Machine return with “Fort Perch Rock,” their first new music of 2025 and the title track from a new EP of the same name. The song barrels forward with wheeling guitars and blown-out urgency, drawing from MC5 and Stooges-style propulsion while keeping its feet planted firmly in the band’s own bracing psych-punk lane. Lifted from an EP that adds three more heady tracks behind it, the release arrives as the band gear up for a run of UK live dates this November.
Named after the New Brighton coastal landmark facing Liverpool’s shoreline, ‘Fort Perch Rock’ carries a strong sense of place, memory, and abrasion. Zak McDonnell describes the title track as a compressed snapshot of a band playing at full volume, pulling imagery from mid-century seaside culture and melting it into something gritty and immediate. Completed by the additional tracks “Daddy Rollin (In Your Arms),” “Like I Always Do,” and “Smells Like Rain,” the EP is fully self-produced and performed by the band, capturing a rush of inspiration that balances history and the future with a whole lotta noise.