Headwreck

Headwreck (Press)

The Brisbane quartet become the first nu-metal act to join EMPIRE’s roster, placing them alongside an eclectic lineup of globally recognised artists and signalling just how much momentum the band have built over the past year. Known for blending crushing riffs, glitch-heavy electronics, emotional intensity and a distinctly early-2000s-inspired aesthetic, Headwreck have quickly emerged as one of the most exciting names in modern heavy music.

Speaking about the partnership, the band said they immediately connected with EMPIRE’s artist-first philosophy and shared vision for the future. It marks a huge moment for a group that has built its reputation through relentless touring, striking visuals and an increasingly devoted fanbase.

EMPIRE representatives Peter Kim and Cameron Walsh praised the band’s raw energy, clear identity and global potential, highlighting the group’s ability to merge metalcore, alternative and electronic influences into something fresh and culturally relevant.

Arriving alongside the announcement is new single Raindrops, Headwreck’s first new material since last year’s ARIA-charting release Attitude Adjustment. The track wastes no time in reaffirming the band’s knack for balancing chaos with melody, delivering pounding grooves, huge guitar tones and an instantly infectious chorus.

Lyrically, Raindrops explores the lingering emotional weight of toxic relationships and the struggle of cutting loose someone who continues to negatively affect your life. Despite the darker subject matter, the song retains the band’s trademark energy and swagger, resulting in a cathartic anthem built equally for sweaty clubs and massive festival stages.

The release also lands as Headwreck begin an extensive UK and European tour, including support dates with Japanese experimental heavyweights Paledusk, a string of headline shows and an appearance at this year’s Download Festival. The run further cements the band’s growing international reputation following sold-out headline dates across Australia earlier this year.

Headwreck have already shared stages with some of Australia’s biggest heavy acts including Northlane, Polaris, Thornhill and The Amity Affliction, while Attitude Adjustment debuted strongly on the ARIA Album and Vinyl charts. Their rapidly growing profile has also seen them named among triple j Unearthed’s Forecast Artists for 2026.

Headwreck

Headwreck (Press)

With over 3.5 million streams and a fiercely DIY creative vision driving everything from visuals to live production, Headwreck are proving themselves far more than just another revival act mining nostalgia. Their sound taps into the spirit of classic nu-metal while pushing it into a sharper, more modern and emotionally charged direction.

If Raindrops is any indication of what comes next, Headwreck’s ascent is only just beginning.

UK Live Dates:

JUNE
4th – Guildford, UK – The Boileroom
6th – Cardiff, Wales – Clwb Ifor Bach
9th – Reading, UK – The Facebar
12th – Donington Park, UK – Download Festival
14th – Southampton, UK – Brunswick Square
15th – Brighton, UK – Concorde 2
16th – Norwich, UK – The Adrian Flux Waterfront

Hot Milk Bring Fire, Fury & Pure Catharsis To London’s Roundhouse

The Gaslight Anthem @ Shepherd's Bush Empire

Brian Fallon of The Gaslight Anthem @ Shepherd's Bush Empire (Kalpesh Patel)

Produced by longtime collaborator Butch Walker at his Nashville-area studio, the two tracks showcase Fallon in reflective but energised form. Better Before, co-written with Canadian singer-songwriter Donovan Woods, leans into emotional vulnerability with a portrait of a relationship falling apart, while Not Bad For New Jersey serves as a rugged and affectionate tribute to Fallon’s roots.

Speaking about the latter track, Fallon explained that the song came from reflecting on the twists and turns of his life and career. The song captures the resilience and working-class spirit long associated with both his songwriting and the New Jersey rock lineage that has influenced him throughout his career.

The release arrives during a busy resurgence for Fallon following The Gaslight Anthem’s acclaimed comeback album History Books in 2023, which ended a near decade-long gap between studio records. That album re-established the band as one of modern rock’s most enduring names, leading to sold-out tours and major festival appearances across the globe.

To celebrate the release of the new solo material, Fallon will perform a run of intimate live dates across the United States this June with his backing band The Painkillers. The performances begin at the legendary The Stone Pony in Asbury Park before heading to Nashville, West Hollywood and Chicago.

The Gaslight Anthem @ Shepherd's Bush Empire

Brian Fallon of The Gaslight Anthem @ Shepherd's Bush Empire (Kalpesh Patel)

Fallon will also appear alongside Bruce Springsteen at the special Music America: The Songs That Shaped Us event in New Jersey, celebrating 250 years of American music ahead of the opening of the Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music.

Bruce Springsteen Is Still The Boss Of London’s Hyde Park

Wealthy Women

Wealthy Women (Nate King)

Produced by Scott Evans — known for his work with Neurosis, SUMAC and Autopsy — the album promises an uncompromising blend of crushing heaviness, social commentary and emotional urgency.

Following April’s debut single Take It Back, the newly released 37 Days offers a stark introduction to the themes driving Children. The track centres on Palestinian Red Crescent paramedic Asaad al-Nasasra, who was detained by Israeli forces for 37 days in 2025 following an attack that killed eight of his colleagues. Wealthy Women channel that real-world horror into a tense and emotionally suffocating piece of heavy music that places listeners directly into the mindset of its subject.

Rather than relying on detached political slogans, the band approach the topic through deeply personal storytelling. Speaking about the single, the group explain that certain stories from the conflict in Gaza “cut through the noise” in ways statistics cannot, with 37 Days attempting to translate fear, helplessness and eventual defiance into sound.

Musically, the track is dense and punishing, lurching between oppressive low-end riffs and bursts of cathartic noise. It’s a sound that reflects the record’s wider emotional and political landscape — one shaped by grief, outrage and growing unease with the state of the modern world.

Though based in San Francisco, Wealthy Women exist outside the typical Bay Area mould. The trio’s varied backgrounds — with Irish songwriter and vocalist Peter Sisk joining Bay Area-born bassist Don Doblados and Kansas-raised drummer Andrew Harms — help inform the outsider perspective threaded throughout Children. Much of the album was written in the aftermath of the 2024 US election and tackles themes including online radicalisation, toxic masculinity, immigration policy and war.

Across its eight tracks, Children swings between crushing social critique and bleak observational humour. Worst Date confronts misogyny and “manosphere” culture, while Atheist Wife dissects Christian nationalist ideals through the framework of a twisted love song. Elsewhere, Shit Breaks explores domestic abuse with devastating restraint, while the title track closes the album mourning the impact of war on children in Gaza and Ukraine.

Recorded at Antisleep Audio, the album appears determined to hit as hard emotionally as it does sonically. There’s a raw physicality to the material that feels rooted in both post-hardcore intensity and politically conscious noise rock traditions, while still retaining a strong sense of narrative songwriting.

With Children, Wealthy Women arrive as a band unafraid to engage directly with uncomfortable realities, pairing crushing instrumentation with deeply human storytelling. It’s a debut that feels timely, furious and impossible to ignore.

LØLØ Brings Catharsis, Chaos And Confetti To Camden’s Electric Ballroom

The Healing Power of Horses

The Healing Power of Horses (Press)

A project wrapped in mystery, distortion and self-deprecating humour, The Healing Power Of Horses continue to carve out a sonic identity that feels intentionally difficult to pin down. Equal parts art-rock abstraction, industrial unease and lo-fi electronic experimentation, i wait, i sink arrives as a chaotic yet strangely compelling statement from a band clearly uninterested in playing by conventional rules.

The duo describe themselves as having spent “way too much time in the attic making tunes and not enough time outside,” and that isolated atmosphere bleeds directly into the DNA of the new track. i wait, i sink lurches between rattling percussion, warped electronics and explosive bursts of noise, sounding simultaneously claustrophobic and expansive. There’s a restless energy running throughout, as if the song itself is constantly threatening to collapse under its own weight before rebuilding again in real time.

Recorded during what the pair call an “unconscious and heady evening spent blowing up audio interfaces and blowing through vapes,” the single feels deliberately unpolished in the best possible way — a collision of raw experimentation and instinctive songwriting. It’s abrasive, hypnotic and oddly euphoric all at once.

The release also marks a significant step forward for the East Anglian outfit as they join a roster that includes boundary-pushing artists such as Blonde Redhead, King Princess and RIP Magic. Their signing to section1 suggests that the duo’s unconventional approach is already resonating well beyond the UK underground.

Despite the cryptic presentation, there’s an undeniable ambition bubbling beneath the surface. References to dusty attics, malfunctioning air purifiers and “7777 wav files on an SSD” only deepen the project’s off-kilter mythology, positioning The Healing Power Of Horses somewhere between avant-garde art collective and sleep-deprived DIY studio obsessives.

Live, the duo are beginning to expand their reach with a run of UK appearances throughout the summer, including dates in London, Brighton and Green Man Festival’s Rising stage in Wales.

UK Tour Dates:

MAY
12th – Club Cheek, London (supporting Sword II)
13th – The Great Escape, Brighton

JUNE
11th – Club Cheek, London (section1 & Perfectly Imperfect night supporting RIP Magic)

AUGUST
21st – Green Man Festival (Rising Stage), Brecon Beacons, Wales

King Princess Finds Safety At Koko

Sophie Grey @ Hammersmith Apollo

Sophie Grey @ Hammersmith Apollo (Kalpesh Patel)

The latest release sees the self-described “Retro Electro” artist continue carving out her own distinctive lane within modern synth-pop, blending nostalgic electronic textures with futuristic production and immersive world-building. Built around shimmering synth layers, driving rhythms and dreamlike hooks, Cyberspace feels like both a dancefloor anthem and a cinematic escape into a hyper-digital universe.

Speaking about the track, SOPHIE GREY. describes Cyberspace as a place “only seconds away from you at all times,” adding: “The weather is perfect, mysterious sound waves encircle you, and the music makes you want to dance. There’s no place like home in Cyberspace.”

That concept is fully realised in the accompanying video, directed by Maximilian Stafford, which pushes SOPHIE GREY.’s futuristic aesthetic even further. Combining surreal imagery, bold visual storytelling and theatrical performance elements, the clip reinforces her growing reputation as an artist equally invested in sonic identity and visual presentation. Impressively, the track itself is entirely written, arranged, performed and produced by SOPHIE GREY., highlighting the depth of her creative control and artistic vision.

Sophie Grey @ Hammersmith Apollo

Sophie Grey @ Hammersmith Apollo (Kalpesh Patel)

Classically trained from the age of four, SOPHIE GREY. brings a strong musical foundation to her work. Mentored by legendary singer-songwriter and pianist Patrice Rushen, she combines technical musicianship with glossy electronic production, creating a sound that feels simultaneously retro-inspired and forward-thinking. Her live shows extend that creative universe even further, often featuring elaborate costumes, theatrical staging and appearances from fictional robotic companion File Collins, blurring the lines between concert and performance art.

Her profile has continued to grow rapidly thanks to support slots with major artists including Sting, Alison Moyet, Shaggy and Marianas Trench. A recent London appearance alongside Trevor Horn performing a reimagined version of Video Killed The Radio Star further cemented her position as one of the most intriguing emerging names in electronic pop.

Now, with Cyberspace, SOPHIE GREY. appears poised to elevate her ambitious “Retro Electro” vision to an even wider audience. The single also launches a busy summer schedule of live appearances across the US and UK, including festival performances and high-profile support slots.

Upcoming UK Live Dates:

JULY
31st – London, Crystal Palace Bowl *

AUGUST
28th – Manchester Pride Festival

* supporting Grace Jones, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Soul II Soul

Sophie Grey Lights Up Hammersmith Apollo With Retro-Electro Dazzle