The Brighton trio’s new EP, ‘Pouch Core,’ bursts with the unkempt charm of The Libertines and the feverish snap of the Buzzcocks, while keeping one foot squarely planted in the back-room grime of garage rock.

This is four songs of unvarnished immediacy, captured at Small Pond Studios with producer Sam Coveney of Lovejoy, The Guts and CLT DRP fame, then sharpened by Alessandro Kogolo in mastering. If earlier releases hinted at promise, ‘Pouch Core’ barges through the doorway…

Vocalist and guitarist James Neighbour sees it as a record of chaotic youth. Pouch Core is a collection of songs that lays bare the overwhelming uncertainty and headlong thrill of your early twenties, along with the strange pressure to achieve something while also feeling you are lagging behind. The EP swims in that uneasy water where optimism and panic swirl together.

The opening single, ‘Running Around,’ is an escape fantasy with jagged chords and a ride that refuses to sit still. It hints at the Libertines’ ‘Don’t Look Back Into the Sun’ in its opening bars, while the vocal delivery nods to Pete Shelley’s quick-cut melodicism. ‘Everyday,’ the second single, is more inward-looking, wrestling with time’s quiet theft and the urge to hold someone in place before the moment is gone.

‘Elsewhere,’ ‘It Ain’t Pretty’ and ‘Someone Else’s Clothes’ arrive as long-standing live favourites finally bottled. The former carries a serrated riff and spitfire tone, the latter shuffles brio and self-doubt into the same worn jacket.

‘Nothing’ here feels smoothed or manicured. Each track teeters on the edge,…

Vocalist and guitarist James Neighbour shared insight into the song’s origins: “’Pouch Core’ is a collection of songs that neatly presents a lot of the feelings of overwhelming uncertainty and extreme excitement you have in your early 20s, along with the heightened pressure you feel to make something of your life while also having a lack of direction and feeling like you are being left behind.

The EP’s first single, ‘Running Around,’ suggests that things are what you make of them and you don’t exactly know what is going to happen. But if you dream big enough, you can escape the suffocating, repetitive rhythms of normal life. Whereas the second single, ‘Everyday,’ describes someone who is struggling with how quickly life is starting to move and change around them. They are still somewhat living in the past while also clinging on to the present moment, wanting this person to stay with them.

It’s very easy to write about these things when you are at this point in your life, living and feeling it every day. I think the EP is a good representation of our sound so far and how it has evolved, but it is still riddled with our consistent influences. It’s especially apparent with the intro to ‘Running Around’ being highly inspired by the intro to ‘Don’t Look Back Into the Sun’ by The Libertines, and the Pete Shelley-from-the-Buzzcocks vocal style throughout, especially heard on ‘It Ain’t Pretty’.

‘It Ain’t Pretty’ and ‘Someone Else’s Clothes’ have been staples of our live set for most of the band’s existence, but ‘Running Around’ and ‘Everyday’ were fresh songs written for the EP. The entire EP was recorded at Small Pond Studios in Brighton with producer Sam Coveney. We previously recorded ‘It Ain’t Pretty’ there with Sam as part of the ‘Small Pond Emerging Volume 4’ compilation album. We loved how the track turned out, so in the end we decided to include it on the EP and record the other three tracks there.”

Headline photo: Ethne Lever

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