Tag Archives: Oral Habit

Fresh Juice

Fresh Juice 13th July 2026

ANYX – Ladybirds Spine

‘Ladybirds Spine’ is a striking first glimpse of ANYX’s forthcoming debut ‘Starlink,’ a song that opens with overwhelming magnitude, wrapping the listener in guitars that surge in great, engulfing waves before the drums lock us into a lurching Velvets-like menace. Into that force steps a voice carrying a command that grabs us by the ears. ANYX (Berlin‑based artist Anna Lucia Nissen) sings from the perspective of feeling dwarfed by the world’s volume, its demands, its insistence on visibility, echoing her own admission that everything had begun to feel “too big, too loud, too much.” The image she chose, perched on a ladybird’s spine, seeing life from a tiny, overmatched vantage point, becomes the song’s emotional fulcrum. It is a powerful opening statement, setting the tone for a debut album that might be hard to ignore come the autumn time. You can pre-order the album here: https://anyx.bandcamp.com/album/starlink

Ty Segall – Black Paint

This is the first single from Ty Segall’s album ‘Chrome,’ out on LP/CD/CS from Drag City on August 28th. Happily, at least as far as I can tell from the information available thus far, this promises to be Ty’s most full on, loud electric full band offering for some time. That fuzz guitar assault and feral energy is certainly all over ‘Black Paint’ and it would appear that the rough edged live feel of the album was realised deliberately, with the band all rehearsing together a full month before actually recording. When they did eventually get it down in the studio, the sessions were done in just six days with the line up of Ben Boye, Evan Burrows, Mikal Cronin, Emmett Kelly who were the same band members for some of Segall’s most ferocious and memorable live shows in the past. Expect good stuff ahead, you can pre-order the album via this link: https://amzn.to/4p93hgu

Oral Habit – Thin Trippin’

This was the moment Oral Habit stopped me in my tracks, summoning the vintage grazing indie‑guitar shimmer with playing that leans into groove as much as it toys with electric‑guitar posturing. The uninhibited way they throw the song across the room, as if mistaking it for a pop tune would be entirely your problem. It carries strong echoes of the early nineties, when UK bands channelled the debris of twentieth‑century cultural life (sixties garage records in family lofts, late‑night cult film reruns, abandoned guitars and vintage organs) into something raw and reactionary. Oral Habit are not revivalists of the revivalists, but ‘Thin Trippin’ plugs straight into those appealing influences while adding their own grunge‑flecked, psych‑tilted, college‑rock abandon. It is the first sign of a band who wrap their whole essence around a hard‑kicking rock melange that emphatically announces they are their own, unique force. You can get a download of the album this way: https://amzn.to/4gqyB8p

Pearl And The Oysters – Mandarin Moon

This track is taken from the new Pearl And The Oysters album ‘Monkey Mind,’ out now on Stones Throw. The critical reception for the release has noted their expansiveness, how they have boldly incorporated many eclectic leaning styles such as sophisti‑pop, bossa, electronica, psych‑pop, alongside lounge‑leaning textures that have resulted in a bright, meticulously arranged whole. Fans and early listeners highlighted its “sharp yet cozy soundscape” and its dense, detail‑rich production. All of which caught my ear too, particularly this lush number that seems to embrace the spooky delirium of an earlier than expected moon arrival casting a spell on those who encounter it. You can get a download of the album via this link: https://amzn.to/4h4moq4

Hollow Hand – Here Are The Tulips

Here is some folk rock with a real satisfying tension and release, it feeds into the major/minor electric jangle that the genre wears in its purest form but it is executed with such panache, the sound feels like a long lost friend returning home. Forthcoming album ‘Wish Road South,’ a newly revitalised effort from Max Kinghorn‑Mills and his Brighton band, arrives on September 4th via Loose Music / Soundl. Led by this breezy first single, it was the moment Kinghorn‑Mills realised he had “found something” in its live, unforced spark. The record captures everyday stories with unfussy warmth, realised with a shift away from bedroom production toward a fully collaborative, live‑tracked trio. Born from bus rides, fresh creative zeal and a renewed sense of purpose, this record marks Hollow Hand’s most open, immediate and instinctive work yet. You can pre-order the album on vinyl via this link: https://amzn.to/44ngUPP

Sera Cahoone – Pulling Up Roots

Sera Cahoone returns this August with ‘I’ve Missed You All These Years,’ her first album in eight years and it is a bright, collaborative work created alongside the long climb back following profound loss. Ahead of its release, she offers a first glimpse with ‘Pulling Up Roots,’ a barroom‑swinging single whose spirit she describes as “getting to the other side and experiencing growth and momentum after a challenging time.” It’s a fitting entry point into a record that looks past the dark winter and toward the moment the light comes back in; it is also a collection of blues‑folk‑country songs fuelled by community, clarity and the hard won triumph of rediscovering yourself. You can get on the pre-order list by following this link: https://amzn.to/4f8h2Yw

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New Release Reviews

Oral Habit – A Broken Chord

Isn’t it the truth that sometimes you do not know you are missing something until it comes right back staring you in the face? And so it was with this band, specifically my chance encounter with their song ‘Thin Trippin.’ It instantly summoned sonic senses that were once stimulated on a daily basis, the only thing is those days were over three decades ago. That grazing indie guitar sound, the playing that leans into groove as much as it plays for electric guitar posturing and the uninhibited way they are putting the song across thinking if folks were to mistake it for a pop tune, they could not care less. It has such strong echoes of the early nineties, of a time when UK bands in particular had a purity of intent, they were channelling the debris of the twentieth century cultural life lying around them, those sixties garage records shoved away in family lofts, late night TV cult film re-runs, the abandoned guitars and vintage organs which synthesised electro pop had tried, and failed ultimately, to make redundant, then building a reactionary sound of their own. Which is not to say that Oral Habit are revivalists of the original revivalists, but they are plugging right into those very appealing influences, all slowly abandoned as Britpop shifted the emphasis once again, and even better, they now have a far greater palate to work from. So Oral Habit are a band that also reference grunge, they trip out on psych, they push too hard with feverish college rock abandon, and they wrap their whole essence around a hard kicking rock melange of original songs that emphatically shout they are their own, unique force.

Oral Habit themselves come from a place that makes perfect sense of that unruly spark. The core trio of Charlie Hales alongside his brother Felix and bassist Tippi Lewis, operate with the kind of restless, sleeves‑rolled‑up determination that has always powered the best DIY scenes. Their sound seems born out of pushing whatever battered gear is within reach until it either sings or collapses, the sort of setup where overheated valves, misbehaving pedals and half‑broken amps become part of the aesthetic rather than obstacles to be tidied away. Charlie had been sketching out ideas alone long before the band officially coalesced in 2023, but once the three of them locked in, they quickly found themselves orbiting a wider network of like‑minded psych‑garage outfits scattered across the country; the kind of bands who have had their brains rewired by years of Osees and King Gizzard tours. They have already forged tight bonds with London’s Hot Face and caught the ear of Manchester’s Sour Grapes collective, whose catalogue of fuzz‑leaning misfits places Oral Habit firmly among their own. Most intriguingly, they have connected with the Krautpop! label now settled in Falmouth, a home for the more lysergic corners of the UK underground and a natural landing place for a group whose instincts lean towards the wild, the wired and the wonderfully unrefined.

Above all this is a debut album that sets out as many ideas as it can pack into eleven songs lasting just thirty minutes. Do not let the quickfire nature fool you into spotting a drought on ideas, if anything it is the exact opposite. Oral Habit are flying off on so many tangents they almost keep tripping themselves up as they go crash landing into the next song. It is restless, the opening title track setting out its A-B-C positioning, an avalanche of noise hammering the nail of their ethos into our heads before we explode into the ‘Surface Breaker’ riffage, two minutes of speed shifting, crunching gear changes that challenge the listener to keep up. No one is going to hold them still long enough to pin a label on them either, just as you catch yourself thinking that ‘Faux Fidelity’ has darker gothic shades you are fired into a spin of flanging fuzz guitars. Then we are parachuted into the kind of swampy grunge thrashing that Steve Albini would surely have been happy to put his name to. But they can do hooks as well, in fact the album is overflowing with them, it is just that they never settle in the same place for long. The psych pop connections are pretty real too, there is even a flash during ‘Chekhov’ that recalls Status Quo before they got comfortable in denim, but here again the track ends in a far different realm, heavy rock riffing in its purest mode, like all the unnecessary bits have been taken out. ‘Mystery Gash’ pulls a tantalising facility for tasty major/minor melodic writing out of the bag, hidden depths that are also uncovered on the becalmed organ led closer ‘Crooner & Moon.’ So, for all the whiplash turns and stylistic pile‑ups, there is a real craft at work here, a sense that Oral Habit already understand the value of instinct, immediacy and leaving the edges jagged. This is a debut bursting with potential, announcing a group with the nerve, imagination, and sheer appetite to make their own corner of the guitar‑rock universe feel alive again.

Danny Neill

You can download the album via this link: https://amzn.to/3Q0qip7

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