January 2025 - best new alternative, post-punk and indie tracks

Any artist is welcome to send us a track via freshonthenet.co.uk anytime between Monday lunchtime and Wednesday evening (or when we receive 200 submissions, whichever is sooner) - and all our moderators, including Tom Robinson, will listen to every track. This is our full inbox from the week beginning Mon 03rd February 2025: from Friday afternoon you'll be able to hear our shortlist and pick your favourites on this week's Listening Post which will appear at freshonthenet.co.uk/batchxxx

If a track you submitted does not appear in this list, it’s probably because another of your tracks appeared in our Fresh Faves or on the BBC Music Introducing Mixtape during the last three months — we ask that artists featured on either wait three months before resubmitting to give others a chance. 

We also don’t accept short previews or SoundCloud Go tracks that can only be heard as 30 second previews, and tracks made private after submission, which cannot be included in playlists. You will be able to resubmit the track in future. Tracks (and remixes of tracks) that have been previously submitted, and tracks from banned artists will also be removed.

Full Inbox: Batch 557

+ MARCH 2025 PART I

Rock, Indie, Pop, Punk, Alternativa, New wave, Gothic, Synthpop

Mix Febuary 2025.

Shooter In The Back Of The Merc

LYRICS:
In a car crash, you'll rearrange your head
And all the memories you wish you'd wish you'd never had
I told you how I'd been hurt before
And you'd hold me and say we're better for it now

I should know better
You, in your sweater

I was standing high up on the wall
Oh, I can still hear you from here, yeah, but if I listen, I might fall
No, you don't think before you speak your mind
And I don't think that I'll speak at all

You should know better
Signed, my dead letter

If I can't stop this, I don't want this
Tell me now before the silence
Cut me down and strike relentless
I can't stop this, I don't want this
Tell me now before the silence
Cut me down, me down, me down

You hurt me the way that you'd been loved
And it kills me that I cannot feel a thing
In a car crash you'll reassess your life
And my role in it.
We're gonna drift apart             in a car crash, in a car crash

I can't stop the growing fear that we'll waste all our golden years together
I can't stop this. First, you're gone then you appear, and now I know that it is clear
Tell me that I'm wrong, but I think that we're not meant to be

I don't want this, I can't stop this
Tell me now before the silence
Cut me down and strike relentless
I don't want this, I can't stop this
Tell me now before the silence
Cut me down and strike relentless.

Car Crash

Take It Or Leave It

We Owe You Nothing

Barnsley Market is a memory of a West Yorkshire childhood. A powerful and driving track expressing a collection of experiences from the 90s with a retrospective view. A layered but raw statement of intent for the future of Yes Chris!

Yes Chris - Barnsley Market.mp3

I Wanna Go Home

i’m in love...

i'm in love...

“ratcage walk” is an atmospheric journey through an imagined city where dusk settles over rain-soaked streets

SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5eytRPn7VmcLuNPtkrjoF6
ALL STREAMING: https://ffm.to/ratcagewalk
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/absent.ink/
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/absentink
YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9nhTsOaOSL6H5t11_45bkg
WEB: https://absent.ink

ratcage walk

GLITCH I

iZZY

'Thee Black Boltz' by Tunde Adebimpe (Release Date: April 18, 2025)
Order Album / Stream Now: https://music.subpop.com/tundeadebimpe_theeblackboltz

Tunde Adebimpe: 
Bandcamp: https://tundeadebimpe.bandcamp.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tadebimpe
On Tour: https://www.subpop.com/artists/tunde_adebimpe/tours
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3and7uje1nuMnKJczCKox9?si=slNaYtb_S5KY9T1degfa8g

Sub Pop Records: http://www.subpop.com
MegaMart: https://megamart.subpop.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/subpop
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/subpoprecords
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/subpop
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@subpoprecords
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/subpoprecords
SoundCloud: http://soundcloud.com/subpop
Podcast: http://subpop.fm

Thee Black Boltz

Drop

Tunde Adebimpe - Drop

Two-Man Giant Squid

No Expectations

Worn Out and Faded (feat. Luca Celine Mueller)

THE BAD WIRES are an up and coming three piece Manchester based rock and roll band who are bringing the noise with their high octane, blues infused, punky indie belters.

Made up of Danny Waterson on lead vocals and guitar, Ellis Wilson on bass and  Tim Dixon on drums, their dirty, bluesy, guitar driven tunes are reminiscent of artists such as Jack White, The Black Keys and The Stooges, while also managing to stay quintessentially British in their lyrical and vocal attack.

There’s also a cinematic edge to their music that they credit to the same sort of vibe of artists like Lana Del Rey and Arctic Monkeys.

Having spent 2024 rehearsing, perfecting and recording their sound, The Bad Wires are now  delighted to unleash their debut single ‘Wisecracks’ into the world.
Released on the 31st January, ‘Wisecracks’ starts off as it means to go on with its straight of the bat, fuzzing, snarling guitar riffs and smattering of driving drum beats overlaid with gloriously distorted vocals giving rise to those deliciously blues infused funky base notes. 

‘Wisecracks’ immediately sets The Bad Wires apart from all their contemporaries by providing us with something that is both instantly recognisable as a banging rock and roll anthem, whilst also managing to be incredibly  fresh and exciting, skipping and jumping along through genres and blending them effortlessly…. And my god those guitar solos are simply euphoric!!

I defy anyone not to fall in love with this track and indeed this band from the very first listen. 

The band have said of the track:-

“With this tune we really just wanted a fuzzy, bluesy, guitar riff that just grabs you by the scruff of the neck and says “I’m here now, listen” but still has that surfy western twang, we always go for that cinematic feel in our songs and hopefully it’s there. The lyrics were inspired by listening to too much Tom Waits and doing our Mancunian take on it.”

‘Wisecracks’ was written by Danny Waterson and was recorded at Airtight Studios in Manchester and Produced by Seadna McPhail.

The Bad Wires - Wisecracks

The Songbird PR