Swiss folk-pop artist Eloa shares her latest single “Song for A”, a tender reflection on love, courage, and choosing the unknown. Carried by her distinctive voice and intimate acoustic arrangements, the song mirrors Eloa’s own leap of faith after leaving her job to devote a full year entirely to music. Now travelling across Europe by bus with her guitarist, she performs wherever possible, turning movement, vulnerability, and storytelling into the heart of her creative life. The track lands with warmth and sincerity, capturing the quiet bravery of letting go in favor of adventure.
Eloa was launched in 2020 by Élodie Correa following years fronting the alternative metal band Mingmen. “Since I was a child, I’ve always wanted to tell stories, write my emotions, compose my own music, and find my voice,” she says. Joined on the road in 2025 by a guitarist from Grand Canard Blanc, Eloa continues a year-long journey in support of her debut album, recorded at Blend Studio in Lutry, shaping a body of work rooted in honesty, freedom, and shared human contrasts.
Iranian-Norwegian metallers Confess continue a landmark year with the release of their searing single “I’m Your God Now”, taken from the reissued edition of their second album ‘In Pursuit Of Dreams’, out now via their EVIN Productions imprint. The remastered release also includes three previously unheard tracks: “Watch The Decay Of Sun”, “Convention”, and “Face-Off”, expanding a record that already holds deep historical and emotional weight for the band.
Discussing the single, the band explain, “When I first wrote “I’m Your God Now”, it carried the rage and defiance of a time when speaking out came with real consequences. Remastering them isn’t about nostalgia. It’s about sharpening the blade.” The track lands with renewed force, channeling resistance and clarity through tightly coiled riffs and unfiltered intensity, sounding as urgent now as when it was first written.
Reflecting on the album’s reissue, frontman Nikan Khosravi describes ‘In Pursuit Of Dreams’ as more than a record. “This isn’t just an album; it’s a piece of history,” he says, recalling its release as the band’s last while still in Iran. The album became a lightning rod for rebellion and expression, placing Confess firmly on the global metal map and establishing the band as a vital voice within Middle Eastern metal.
The reissue arrives alongside continued momentum following Confess’s 2025 album ‘Destination Addiction’, produced by Khosravi and mixed and mastered by Grammy-nominated Alberto De Icaza. That record featured performances from George Kollias and Marzi Montazeri, and earned widespread acclaim from Metal Hammer, Norway Rock Magazine, and Inferno Magazine, underlining the band’s creative and technical evolution.
Confess’s story also reaches a wider audience through their feature in the HULU series ‘Into The Void: Life, Death & Heavy Metal’. Speaking on their inclusion, Khosravi says, “For us, this isn’t just about music. It’s about survival, resistance, and proving that metal has no borders.” Together, the single, reissue, and documentary frame Confess as a band whose music carries lived experience, defiance, and a refusal to be silenced.
Welsh collective MWSOG unveil their debut single “Chwyldro”, out now on BWGiBWGAN, binding ancient Cymru to a modern, ritual-charged pulse. Rooted in acid folk, mystical trad, and heavy rock weight, the song opens with a galloping, spell-like rhythm as drums, harmonium, and harmonised voices rise together. The response to the track highlights its fearless atmosphere, where folk storytelling meets darker power and communal intensity.
Fronted by the elemental voice of Mari Mathias, “Chwyldro” channels Welsh myth and resistance through sound. “MWSOG allows me to embody the teachings of the Mabinogi, ancient voices so old we can no longer trace their source,” Mathias says. “Much of what we write follows these quiet threads – the weaving of nature and metal, the pulse between the industrial and the soil.” The song draws directly on the Rebecca Riots, transforming historical rebellion into rhythm, movement, and ritual.
Drummer Luke Huw Llewellyn explains, “We wanted to retell the struggles of our ancestors through modern musical language,” while guitarist Grant Jones recalls the riff arriving fully formed, “like it had been waiting to be found.” Recorded beneath the standing stones of the Preseli Hills and shaped by producer Steffan Pringle, “Chwyldro” arrives as an awakening rather than a debut, carrying Welsh culture, myth, and defiance forward with fire still burning.
Paul Morley turns his lens toward David Bowie in ‘Far Above The World’, a philosophical and far-reaching study of Bowie as a permanent cultural force. Rather than a conventional biography, the book traces Bowie’s restless search for new ideas, examining the contradictions that powered his creativity: strategist and enthusiast, intellectual and rock-and-roller, outsider and global star. Johnny Marr praises Morley’s writing as “magical and inspired, like Bowie himself,” while Neil Tennant calls it “a compelling chronicle” that brings Bowie’s many selves into focus.
Set against the decade since Bowie’s death in 2016, ‘Far Above The World’ places his work firmly in the present tense, arguing that his songs, warnings, and reflections grow more relevant with time. Morley follows Bowie’s constant reinvention and his use of pop music as a way to process dangerous, fast-changing eras, framing him as an artist who lived in the future while translating it for everyone else. The book lands as a vivid, thoughtful exploration of why Bowie continues to matter, not as memory, but as an active, evolving influence.
Peter Doggett delivers a sweeping, deeply researched portrait of Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys in ‘Surf’s Up’, out now in hardcover. Framed as a family saga as much as a musical history, the book traces Wilson’s extraordinary melodic and arranging gifts alongside the pressures that shaped the band’s internal dynamics. Doggett captures the creative peak that produced era-defining music while situating it within the complicated personal world that surrounded it.
Written from the perspective of a lifelong fan, ‘Surf’s Up’ balances admiration with clarity, charting decades of evolution, conflict, and resilience within the band. Doggett explores not only the music itself but the passions and fixations that fueled it, from surf culture and cars to politics and food, while giving space to the wider creative roles of band members including Dennis Wilson. The result is a vivid, human account that honors the brilliance, contradictions, and enduring impact of one of pop music’s most influential groups.
Mike Joyce shares his long-awaited memoir ‘The Drums’, offering a deeply personal account of life inside The Smiths from the perspective of their drummer. Rather than retreading the band’s well-documented history, Joyce focuses on the lived experience, capturing the humor, tension, joy, and disbelief of being part of one of the most influential groups of all time. Written with warmth and wit, the book asks the question Joyce and bassist Andy Rourke often returned to: “Where did it all go right?”
As the final member of the band to publish his autobiography, Joyce brings a fresh and human lens to familiar moments, conveying what it actually felt like to be there. His reflections are frank, funny, and quietly vulnerable, grounding the myth of The Smiths in everyday reality. ‘The Drums’ lands as an honest and engaging portrait of a self-confessed superfan who went from a kid in suburban Fallowfield to the rhythmic backbone of a generation-defining band.
Punk rock guitarist Brian Baker shares a quieter, deeply observant side of life on tour in his new photo book ‘The Road’, a striking collection of images gathered over years of global touring with Bad Religion, Dag Nasty, and beyond. Rather than stage lights and spectacle, the book focuses on the in-between moments, capturing roadside signs, religious iconography, diner meals, unsettling figurines, and well-worn guitars with a careful, curious eye. Midwest Book Review calls it “an illuminating compendium” and “highly recommended,” while Dying Scene notes how the largely context-free images invite viewers to tell their own stories. Designed in collaboration with Jennifer Sakai and published by Akashic Books, ‘The Road’ offers a grounded, intimate portrait of touring life that finds beauty and meaning in the overlooked and the mundane.
South Milan trio MaveriX fuse melodic punk rock with country grit on their raw new single “I Hate You All”, a blistering, ironic blast aimed at conformity and polished social façades. Formed by Nicc, Drago, and Teo, the band quickly earned a reputation as the European Social Distortion, following the buzz of their debut album ‘COWPUNK!’ on Rocketman Records and relentless touring across Italy, Sardinia, Switzerland, and Belgium, including a 2024 support slot with Punkreas. Built on spaghetti western-infused riffs and a raucous group-chant chorus, the track captures the unease of feeling out of place and channels it into something loud, defiant, and oddly communal, marking the first step toward a new EP due in Spring 2026.
Another Realm is the symphonic rock and metal project of guitarist, composer, and producer Steven Morrison of Tysondog and vocalist and songwriter Philip Stuckey of Stuckfish, and their second album ‘Origin’ expands the scope of their dark fantasy vision. Following their self-titled debut ‘Another Realm’, the new record is built around a story-driven concept exploring the creation of the world and its evolution, blending myth, legend, and historical ideas into a philosophical narrative. Drawing on Stuckey’s acclaimed prog rock work with Stuckfish and Morrison’s decade-long tenure with NWOBHM mainstays Tysondog, ‘Origin’ lands as an ambitious, immersive journey that fuses symphonic grandeur with metallic weight and thoughtful storytelling.
Irish singer-songwriter Rosie Carney shares her second new single, “Fragile Fantasy”, co-produced by Ross MacDonald of The 1975 and Ed Thomas. The track follows “Here”, her first release since the acclaimed 2022 album ‘i wanna feel happy’, and continues a striking sonic evolution. Built on floating, dreamlike synths, the song carries Carney’s emotional clarity into a more expansive, fantasized sound.
“I wrote Fragile Fantasy when I began to reminisce about my childhood – something I often find myself pining for,” Carney says. She traces the song back to a youth shaped by imagination and the challenge of reconciling fantasy with reality, recalling a formative moment with a teacher who encouraged her to “learn how to be humans in this life.” That blend of wonder, vulnerability, and self-reflection gives the track its emotional core, breaking open questions of love, fear, and belonging.
Developed over months of sessions in London, “Fragile Fantasy” pulls from shoegaze, alt-pop, and electronic textures while staying rooted in Carney’s raw songwriting voice. Mixed by Jonathan Gilmore, the song lands with warmth and openness, marking a confident step forward. It also serves as the first glimpse of a larger body of work to follow on the newly announced label cool0nline, signaling a creatively rich new era for Carney.
