This week’s list has caused the longest deliberation this year over a pick for single of the week.
There are 12 very good tracks at the top of this week’s list and some very decent ones underneath that, but no easy standout. We have taken a Reading approach to the outcome!
Single of the Week: Doops – everything’s fine
Doops are great, we didn’t get to them during Are You Listening? Festival, but we will catch them at the Readipop Fiesta (if we don’t get a chance before then). When we had a chat before AYL? they were teasing new material was coming soon and here is the first taste of it. Whilst their 2021 Deflections EP was decent, this feels like a confident step up from that and bodes well for what else is coming. There is a hint of Radiohead about the rhythm section on this track alongside an almost Mancunian 90’s groove that we very much approve of.
Lathe of Heaven – Aurora
A really satisfying slab of 80s leaning rock in a Tears For Fears and Simple Minds vein. Check out their very decent 2023 debut album Bound By Naked Skies. This is the lead single from a new album of the same title (Aurora) due out at the end of August. Of the single, singer Gage Allison said: “A song loosely inspired by an Arthur C. Clarke short story called ‘If I Forget Thee, O Earth…’ In the story a man and his son take a trip from their colony on the moon to a lookout point where Earth (long abandoned due to nuclear war) can be seen rising across the vast gulf of space. Playing with this concept, I took a more personal and romantic approach, exploring similar themes of loss, love, and devotion at the end of the world.” Basically, they are literary, and a bit bonkers, in all the best ways.
SPRINTS – Descartes
One of the undoubted highlights of Are You Listening? Festival, the Irish garage punks are back with this sonic assault of a first single from their second album.
Kae Tempest – Diagnoses
The new album out on Friday looks like an essential release for this year. This is the third blisteringly good single.
KNEECAP and Mozey – THE RECAP
As they previously sang, “Oh, It’s been ages, since we made the front pages.” Except it hasn’t. So far they are standing strong in the face of an almighty assault from the Powers That Be. This is more on the EDM end of their output, an out and out fast tempoed assault that jumps in, disses Kemi Badenoch, and gets out in a hurry.
Caroline Polachek – On The Beach
From the Soundtrack to Hideo Kojima’s latest computer games masterpiece Death Stranding 2. To say that this feels like one of her weaker releases recently is effectively the same as saying Polachek is rapidly ascending to the heights of true generational genius. She could do an album about cat memes and you know it would reduce you to tears with the emotional depth of it.
The Beths – No Joy
The New Zealand fourpiece have a new album out in August and are touring the UK in September. Elizabeth stokes says of this single: “It’s about anhedonia, which, paradoxically, was there both in the worst parts of depression, and then also when I was feeling pretty numb on my SSRI,” Stokes says. “It wasn’t that I was sad, I was feeling pretty good. It was just that I didn’t like the things that I liked. I wasn’t getting joy from them. It’s very literal.” This single on the other hand will bring much joy to rock fans and skate-punks alike.
Royel Otis – car
One of those bands that just oozes summer, sunshine and open top cars. I have been a fan since catching them at Reading Festival 2023. By the end of this summer, they seem poised to jump up into the big leagues. A really good single.
Alex G – June Guitar
Somehow this is from what will be his tenth album! This is such a beautiful track, huge wells of emotion and golden sounds.
Red Rum Club – Crush TX
Opening the Main Stage of Reading Festival this year, Crush fizzes along with huge energy and a guitar line that will nag its way into your brain.
Reading Indie Life 
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