The Hanging Stars. Left to right: Richard Olson, Patrick Ralla, Charlie Salvidge and Paul Milne. Photo by Dean Chalkley.
London’s kings of cosmic country, The Hanging Stars, are back with a brand-new album, Just A Day, only this time around, they’ve reined in the psychedelic Americana sounds, and taken a back-to-basics approach, with former Teenage Fanclub member, Gerry Love, on production duties.
Unlike some of their previous albums, there are no horns or pedal steel, or diversions into Spaghetti Western soundtracks or ‘Balearic baggy’ – Just A Day is essentially a ‘band in a room’ record.
It’s also the band’s sixth album – their seventh if you include Dreams, last year’s excellent collaboration with folk legend, Bonnie Dobson – and their third to be recorded at Edwyn Collins’s Clashnarrow Studios in the Scottish Highlands.
The group describe the studio as “a sort of mixture between Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory and the BBC’s Repair Shop.”
With Love at the helm, and their longtime collaborator, Sean Read (Dexys) as co-producer and engineer, The Hanging Stars recorded a large part of the album in a single week in February 2025, using Collins’s vintage gear, including the Gretsch Blackhawk guitar he played in his Orange Juice days, and the Barnes and Mullins fuzz box heard on hit single, ‘A Girl Like You.’
‘Unlike some of their previous albums, there are no horns or pedal steel, or diversions into Spaghetti Western soundtracks or ‘Balearic baggy’ – Just A Day is essentially a ‘band in a room’ record’
The result is a focused record with a renewed vigour and energy that embraces influences including the jangly guitar pop of The Byrds, Big Star, Teenage Fanclub and R.E.M, ’60s folk, The Velvet Underground and The Beach Boys, the ’70s New York sounds of the Feelies and Television, and the strung-out country soul of Spiritualized.
In an exclusive interview over a pint in a pub near London’s Denmark Street – AKA “Tin Pan Alley” – Richard Olson, the frontman of The Hanging Stars, and the band’s chief songwriter, tells Say It With Garage Flowers why they had to rethink things, how the band has developed over the past few years and why he no longer suffers from imposter syndrome.
“If we’d done the album without Gerry, I think it would’ve been a very different record,” he says.
Sean Hannam and Richard Olson, London, June 2026. Photo by Justin Jones.
Q&A
I’ve interviewed you a few times over the years, but the first time was in 2016, to talk about the debut album by The Hanging Stars, Over the Silvery Lake, which came out that year, so it’s been a decade since that record. How does that feel?
Rich Olson: We live in such different times now. We just graft on… You have to stick to your guns as a band – to try and jump around won’t work.
You’re prolific. If you include last year’s album with Bonnie Dobson, Dreams, and the new record, Just A Day, that’s seven albums in 10 years…
We just really like being busy, you know what I mean? It feels like we’re constantly chasing the next high. It’s like, ‘Oh God, I’ve got all these ideas, and I just want to put them down.’ And then you’re waiting to make it happen – to find the dates when you can record. We’ve been busy, man. What can I say? It’s been quite a trip, and it’s not over.
Let’s talk about the new album and get some background on it. Since we last spoke, the band has had some lineup changes. Your pedal steel player, Joe Harvey-Whyte, has left and your drummer, Paulie Cobra, who played on the new record, is on sabbatical from playing live. Charlie Salvidge, who was in TOY, is now sitting in on drums…
The Hanging Stars needs to be a floating concept, and I think that everybody that’s been in The Hanging Stars are in The Hanging Stars, if you see what I mean. I love the fact that we develop in that way and that you don’t know what’s coming next. It’s quite natural and organic, and I love that we don’t repeat ourselves and that everyone who has been in the band is still part of it. Paulie needed a break and that’s fine. It’s a lot to do – you have to dedicate a lot of your life to it.
And you still have to work in day jobs too…
People who sell out Shepherd’s Bush Empire need to have day jobs. That’s how it works. We’ve known Charlie for quite a while and we needed someone who could step in and be a part of it, otherwise you have to get a session player in, and that costs money for every rehearsal.
‘We’ve been busy, man. What can I say? It’s been quite a trip, and it’s not over’
In the press material for the new record, your guitarist, Patrick Ralla, says: “We needed to rethink things. A new, leaner approach: bass, drums, guitars and four-part harmonies. It certainly worked for The Byrds, Big Star and Teenage Fanclub.” Can you tell me more about that? How did the lineup change lead to you going back to basics?
The pedal steel took up a lot of room – it does that does by its nature, but Joe’s a great player… It just came to an end, and we had to force ourselves to rethink how we did things. In some ways it’s been nice… the space between the notes.
We needed to take a step back and listen to the songs – not play all over them but leave room. If you listen to the new record, there’s more air on it.
It feels like a ‘band in a room’ record…
There are no trumpets.
Or Spaghetti Western soundtracks…
There are a few synth things. A lot of it [the new approach] was Gerry Love. He was brilliant at helping us arrange the songs and coming up with ideas. He wrote the riff for ‘All Your Yesterdays,’ which is the first song. If you’re lucky enough to have Gerry on board, you can figure out where you’re going to aim.
Have you known Gerry for quite a while?
Yeah – he’s always been supportive. He’s a genuinely lovely fella. We approached him [about the new record], and he said, ‘Listen – you don’t need me’, but we pushed him a bit because we felt that we so needed an outside voice and an outside pair of ears. You can get quite tired of yourself.
You worked with your long-term collaborator, Sean Read, on this album as well, but I guess you needed someone who wasn’t part of your gang, too…
Exactly. Sean is part of The Hanging Stars. It was lovely to have someone with fresh ears come in. There were no dramatic changes, by any means, but Gerry listened in a clear way, and said, ‘Drop that,’ ‘Don’t complicate that bit’, or ‘Cut that bit – you don’t need it.’
‘Working with Gerry Love was a hugely positive experience, and we were lucky – it’s not something that he does’
And he makes a mean vegan curry, too, so I understand…
Yeah – it’s brilliant. I’ll get you the recipe. Working with Gerry was a hugely positive experience, and we were lucky – it’s not something that he does.
For this album, you went back to Edwyn Collins’s studio, Clashnarrow, in the Scottish Highlands. This is the third record you’ve made there…
If you have that opportunity, which we do, from being in the Edwyn camp, it’s stupid to say no. We played with him on his UK tour last year, which was an incredible experience, playing at places like the Royal Festival Hall, the Theatre Royal in Glasgow and the Albert Hall in Manchester.
So, you went to Clashnarrow in February last year…
Yes. We had it for a week.
Was it chilly there at that time of year?
We had some warm winds blowing… It’s beautiful and amazing there, but it was a lot of work because we had very little time and we wanted to use it wisely. We’d never been as prepared before as we were for this album – we pre-produced it for about three months before. We all met up on dark and dingy Tuesdays in Hackney, but it was surprising how many things we started changing when we got to the studio.
Let’s talk about some of the songs on the new record. You mentioned ‘All Your Yesterdays’ earlier. It’s quite a low-key way to open the album – gorgeous and folky, with some chiming guitar and droning organ. With the opening lines, you invite the listener to: ‘Set sail on an ocean wave with the answers that you found in a wishing well…’
I’m pleased with the lyrics to that song. It’s all about the now – how fluid everything is and how it can slip away in a moment. I think that song sets the tone for the record. We’ve been spending less time in the desert and more time down Soho Square. There are a few different ways you can interpret that.
‘The Glasshouse’ has that jangly 12-string sound that you’re known for – the Big Star and The Byrds thing – but you’ve also embraced influences like ‘70s New York bands The Feelies and Television…
That was quite conscious. I’m late to The Feelies but they’re amazing – what a great group. I think we managed to get a little bit of that vibe in that song. It didn’t come out the way I imagined it would, but I’m still very pleased with it, and it features a lot of Gerry Love.
Lyrically, ‘The Glasshouse’ is a meditation on wealth and class…
A lot of the lyrics on the album are about being skint. I don’t know what’s going on, man… In my day job I work with extreme wealth, but I can’t talk about it for professional reasons.
‘Sister of the Sun’, which came out as the first single from the album, is beautiful and blissed-out, with some shimmering guitar work, and some lovely four-part harmonies…
That song is very much the stepping stone from the last record.
Yes – it’s more cosmic and psychedelic than the other songs on the new album…
Exactly. ‘Sister of the Sun’ had been kicking around for ages. I’d never finished it and we’d never had the chance to put it down.
‘Think I’ll Be Alright’ has a country-rock feel…
Jim Morrison from The Rockingbirds plays fiddle on it. We wanted that kind of Velvet Underground-type thing.
There’s a Velvet Underground feel to ‘(Keep On) Making Me Wait’ too – fuzz rock with some bouncy Beach Boys harmonies…
It’s two chords all the way through. Patrick had that song kicking around for a while. We were toying with it. Was I going to sing it, or would he? I’m glad he sang on it. I don’t think he’s ever delivered a performance like that before. He went in and nailed it in two or three takes.
Photo by Dean Chalkley
‘Show Me The Way’ is joyous and upbeat. Your bass player, Paul Milne, wrote it, didn’t he?
I wrote the lyrics. Paul was like, ‘I’ve got a few songs, it’d be great if we could involve one.’ Even though I’m the prime songwriter in The Hanging Stars, everyone writes their own instrumental bits. They’re shit-hot players, and that’s what makes it the band, but, yeah, that one stuck out for me. It went through a few stages in the studio, and then suddenly I was like, ‘right – that’s what it’s supposed to be.’ It came out as like something from The Velvet Underground album Loaded. We’ve reworked our live set a bit and now we end on ‘Show Me The Way.’
Talking of The Velvet Underground, there’s a song on the new album called ‘Run Run Run…’
That’s completely intentional.
It has some spidery electric guitar and a ‘60s organ sound…
I’m pleased with how that song came out. I wanted to get a creepy Dr. John vibe, with weird percussion. It would’ve been great to get some female backing singers on it, in a wooden shack, but we got my kids to do it. I thought that was creepy enough. They went into Sean’s studio [in London] and they nailed it.
‘I’ve got five or six songs that would be good for the next Hanging Stars record’
‘Time Is Nothing’ has keyboard strings and some wonderful harmonies that create a lush and layered sound. It’s breezy and summer-friendly. On it, you sing: ‘There’s a bright blue sky inside my head / There’s an ocean wide that we can sail…’
It’s got that kind of FM radio, driving into the sunset-type vibe. It was something that I’d been kicking around for a long time that was hard to nail, but Gerry was very fond of that song, and he wrote part of the melody.
Do you have a lot of songs or ideas that you haven’t recorded yet?
So many. I’d say I’ve got five or six songs that would be good for the next Hanging Stars record.
‘Big Red Car’ is my favourite song on the new album…
Thank you – that’s one of my favourites too. I’m pleased with the lyrics – they’re about a good friend of mine that I care for so much. It’s a bit of a love song to him, and it came from a 15-year-old riff I had. It’s got a little bit of that country-soul thing going on.
Definitely. I think Spiritualized or Primal Scream could’ve written ‘Big Red Car’ in the ‘90s…
Totally. I love Spiritualized. They’re a big influence on me. I think Lazer Guided Melodies is a masterpiece.
‘Let It Slide’, from your new album, is jangly, like Big Star or early R.E.M…
I’ll take that. In an alternate universe it would be a humungous hit, right?
Lyrically, this album doesn’t feel as dark or as sad as some of your other albums. I’m thinking of the title track of your third album, A New Kind of Sky, which dealt with Brexit, and a lot of the songs on 2022’s Hollow Heart...
I’m no political commentator, but it’s impossible not to be affected by what’s going on in the world. Not every song I write is a comment on something that’s happened to me – some of it is shit I make up.
I also feel that because I’ve left my thirties and my early forties behind, and the parties that went with that, which always leaves a hangover that casts a shadow… I’m a little bit more content in my own clothes and shoes. Maybe this is the slippers in front of the fire record… No, it’s not… On the contrary… If we’d done the album without Gerry, I think it would’ve been a very different record.
‘I’m no political commentator, but it’s impossible not to be affected by what’s going on in the world’
He really shone the Gerry light on it. It was nice to be able to give yourself to someone that you trust. It means you can focus so much more on what you’re doing supposed to doing well, instead of constantly thinking about what everybody else is doing. That was positive. The other thing is that we’ve become a very good and able band. Come and see The Hanging Stars because we’re really quite something! We’ve put all the love we had into this record.
And Gerry Love…
(Laughs). The subeditor in you is in full force! I’m thinking about the album… It’s so weird, because it’s coming out soon… With every album, you go through heaven and hell. It’s like, ‘Oh my God, I’m a fraud, this is shit and we could’ve done that better’… and then the next week, you go, ‘Fuck it – this is amazing!’ That’s how it goes, and you get used to that. It’s positive. I don’t suffer from imposter syndrome anymore – not that I ever did that much, but I think it comes to everyone.
‘We were the world’s best kept secret for a very long time’
Suddenly, last year, instead of 50 people coming to see us in Leeds, or wherever it might’ve been, it was 150 or 200. That’s a big change. I was just like, ‘Who the fuck am I not to take these people seriously?’ And that’s a good feeling. Who am I to have imposter syndrome when those people have paid good money to see us? Now, I have to go up there and do what I do best.
A few years ago, there was a huge difference when we played up north. Now we sell out Glasgow, Manchester and Liverpool, and I’m grateful for that. We straddle a few scenes, and I want to give a serious shout out to promoters, venue managers, and the folks who come to the shows. There’s a great community out there for people with very good record collections, and I appreciate that we get to touch base with those folks. We were the world’s best kept secret for a very long time.
Photo by Dean Chalkley
What’s happened to the group lately is that we’re focused and Gerry helped us with that. When you’re talking about work ethic, he’s a perfectionist, and we’re not… It was a healthy thing to dive into that, and that’s why there’s more air on this record.
The last song on the album, ‘Just A Day’, which is also the title track, has arpeggiated, Southern soul guitar lines, like R.E.M.’s ‘Everybody Hurts’…
It’s that soul thing, and it’s a little bit early Spiritualized as well. It was almost forgotten about for a long time, and then Patrick phoned me up one day and said, ‘Listen, I’ve got an idea for that song…’ I was like, ‘Which song is that? Ah, OK…’ So, he sent me the idea, and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s pretty fucking good…’
It feels like a lament for the day just gone, and in it, you sing: ‘Let the clouds be your guide – let the sun and the moon decide…’
It’s mainly about the here and now, and how easily it can all slip away. That’s something that I’ve lived with for a very long time, for private reasons, and, as you get older, and you see the world, which is an absolutely terrifying place at the moment, you think, ‘Oh, my God – we’ve got so little time.’ Maybe that song is our little push for people to embrace the now and seize the day.
Just A Day is out on June 19 (Loose). You can preorder it here.
29/08/2026 Stanford Hall, UK – The Long Road Festival 04/09/2026 Sheffield, UK – Yellow Arch 07/10/2026 Ipswich, UK – The Church 08/10/2026 Hull, UK – The New Adelphi 09/10/2026 Newcastle, UK – The Cluny 2 10/10/2026 Glasgow, UK – Mono 11/10/2026 Manchester, UK – Night & Day Café 23/10/2026 St. Leonards, UK – The Piper 24/10/2026 Brighton, UK – The Brunswick 31/10/2026 Dorking, UK – St Mary’s Church 05/11/2026 Darlington, UK – The Forum 06/11/2026 Nottingham, UK – The Old Cold Store 07/11/2026 Norwich, UK – Norwich Arts Centre 13/11/2026 London, UK – St Mathias Church 15/11/2026 Portsmouth, UK – The Wedgewood Rooms
From cinematic late-night soundtracks and dark disco to jangly Americana, psych-folk, melancholy orchestral pop and retro soul, Say It With Garage Flowers chooses our favourite albums of 2025 and looks at a few of them in more depth.
When Say It With Garage Flowers spoke to Louis Eliot, frontman and songwriter for the newly-reformed cinematic glam popsters Rialto, in early 2024, he told us that there was a possibility that the band could make a new album.
Louis Eliot – picture: Chris Floyd
Fast forward to spring 2025 and that album, Neon & Ghost Signs – the group’s third and their first record in 24 years (!) – saw the light of day, or should that be the dark of night, as, like Rialto’s previous work, it was collection of songs inspired by night-time in the city.
“A lot of it is about searching for thrills,” says Eliot, adding: “But it’s also about heading out into the night to search for the person that you think you might’ve missed out on being… but what you find is some bruises in the morning…”
We’ve all been there… Neon & Ghost Signs is quite possibly Rialto’s finest album, and Eliot agrees, saying: “I genuinely think this album is the best one. It’s a grown-up record but perhaps not a graceful one… I know bands always love the latest thing they’ve made, but I think it’s a good album and that age has helped me write a better record.”
Well, it’s our favourite album of 2025 – a natural step on from its predecessor, 2021’s Night On Earth, which flirted with moody, Bowie-like electronica and Duran Duran-style ‘80s pop, as well as the dramatic, widescreen influences of John Barry and Ennio Morricone, which were all over Rialto’s 1998, self-titled debut album, Neon & Ghost Signs also explored new territory.
Comeback single and album opener, No One Leaves This Discotheque Alive, is a big statement of intent – over handclaps and a pounding disco groove, a lascivious Eliot is on the prowl in a nightclub, playing “the hound of London town, where the sheets are stained with gold.”
It’s like a darker, sleazier cousin of Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Murder on the Dancefloor. The song was partly inspired by Eliot leaving behind a long-term relationship to immerse himself once more in London nightlife.
‘Rialto’s Neon & Ghost Signs was our favourite album of 2025 – a natural step on from 2021’s Night On Earth, which flirted with moody, Bowie-like electronica and Duran Duran-style ‘80s pop, as well as the dramatic, widescreen influences of John Barry and Ennio Morricone, it also explored new territory’
There’s an urgency and a celebratory feel to a lot of the songs on Neon & Ghost Signs – this is down to a near-death experience Eliot had six years ago, when he was rushed to hospital for emergency surgery while on holiday in Spain.
“What you might think is if you have a very close to death experience you want to start looking after yourself,” he says. “I just went chasing full speed after my youth. I was just like, f*** it, I might not be here next week, so I’m just going to dive in!”
I Want You is a glitter-soaked, glam rock stomp, and there’s more epic disco on the shimmering, ABBA-flavoured, Taking The Edge Off Me, with its cascading piano and soaring strings.
Louis Eliot
The edgy and European-sounding, Put You On Hold, is John Barry-meets-the-Bee-Gees, while Cherry is delicious, futuristic robo-funk that struts the same catwalk as Bowie’sFashion.
There are some reflective moments amidst all the dancefloor shenanigans. The album’s gorgeous title track, which is cocooned in warm, pulsing synths, is a bleary-eyed, comedown ballad that’s one of the best things Eliot has ever written – an ‘us against the world’ love song, like 1998’s The Underdogs.
Sandpaper Kisses is another relationship ballad, but it’s about love gone wrong: “Sandpaper kisses, stinging on your lips. The one you want to hold in your arms is slipping from your grip.”
Eliot juxtaposes the barbed lyric with a charming and nostalgic tune that has echoes of ‘50s instrumental rock and roll duo Santo & Johnny, complete with a great, twangy guitar solo.
The atmospheric and romantic ballad,Remembering To Forget, is so beautiful that Scott Walker could’ve sung it, while second single, the glam strut ofCar That Never Comes, is another of Eliot’s songs about escaping and driving through the city under the cover of night – it can be parked alongside The Car That Took My Love Away, from 2000’s mini-album, Girl On A Train, and Drive from Night On Earth.
“I need to come up with some new ideas,” he jokes, adding: “The album wouldn’t be a Rialto record if it didn’t have the things that people liked about Rialto from the past, but there wouldn’t have been a whole lot of point doing it if I hadn’t brought new things to it.”
Here’s hoping he follows it up with a new set of songs soon and, in the meantime, please can we have vinyl reissues of the first two Rialto albums and a compilation, including all the B-sides too?
Cinematic songs played a big part on one of our other favourite albums of 2025 – The Divine Comedy’s Rainy Sunday Afternoon.
For his 13th record, singer-songwriter, Neil Hannon, returned to the grandiose, orchestral pop of previous long-players, such as Absent Friends and Victory for the Comic Muse, and came up with one of his best albums in a career that’s lasted over three decades.
Recorded in 10 days at Abbey Road and written, produced and arranged by Hannon, Rainy Sunday Afternoon, features an orchestra, brass section and choir, as well as a full band, and found him in a melancholy and reflective mood – he describes it as his ‘deep in middle age album’.
Some of the songs were influenced by some troubling moments in his life – The Last Time I Saw the Old Man concerns itself with the death of his father, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease – as well as the current state of the world.
The stunning opening song, Achilles, has a stirring and mournful string arrangement, and was inspired by soldier and scholar Patrick Shaw-Stewart’s 1915 poem, Achilles in the Trench, which was written about his experience of Gallipoli during World War 1 – Shaw-Stewart died fighting in France in 1917.
The haunting orchestration on I Want You recalls vintage John Barry, while The Last Time I Saw the Old Man is ‘60s-Scott-Walker-meets-late-night-jazz, managing to evoke a similar doomed atmosphere to Elvis Costello’s Shipbuilding, which was covered by Robert Wyatt – Hannon cites the track as an influence on his song.
Despite all the sadness, there are some lighter moments on the album, where Hannon juxtaposes the heavy lyrical subject matter with some playful arrangements.
The delightful title track, which deals with the doom and gloom in society, and having the weight on the world on his shoulders after a fight with his partner, is Bacharach and Carole King-inspired pop, while on the breezy bossa nova of Mar-A-Lago By The Sea, Hannon imagines himself as an imprisoned Donald Trump, pining for his Palm Beach resort in Florida.
All The Pretty Lights is a gorgeous and evocative recollection of a childhood Christmas trip to London, complete with a fairground organ instrumental break, and the atmospheric and yearning ballad, The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter – it takes its title from the novel by Carson McCullers – is a beautiful song about looking for love, but also leaving the past behind, and looking to the future.
‘Despite all the sadness, there are some lighter moments on the album, where Hannon juxtaposes the heavy lyrical subject matter with some playful arrangements’
After all the soul-searching, the album ends on an optimistic and hopeful note with the pastoral Invisible Thread – the lyric centres on a parent letting go of their loved one, as they flee the nest. Fittingly, the track features Hannon’s daughter, Willow, on guest vocals.
Pastoral influences were all over The Instant Garden – the debut album by Blow Monkeys frontman, Dr Robert, and singer-songwriter/ guitarist, Matt Deighton (Mother Earth, Oasis), but it’s not the first time these two talented musicians have collaborated – they worked on the Monks Road Social project, which was overseen by Robert and spawned four albums, one of which featured Paul Weller.
The pair bonded over a mutual love of Tyrannosaurus Rex – they both grew up listening to A Beard of Stars – as well as Fred Neil, Davy Graham, and Nick Drake, which shines through on The Instant Garden – stripped-back, psych-folk, with open-tuned acoustic guitar and impressive and inventive electric playing is very much the order of the day.
Robert and Deighton share lead vocals, as well as acoustic guitar duties and percussion, but Deighton takes care of all the electric guitar work.
The album was recorded and mixed in five days, at Penhesgyn Hall Studio, Anglesey, in North Wales.
Matt Deighton and Dr Robert
Dr Robert takes lead vocals on the soulful and anthemic, Giving Up The Ghost, which brings to mind early Bowie, and he’s also the main singer on Gardening In The Mediterranean Way, which could’ve been inspired by his botanical pursuits at home in Spain – he lives in the mountains, in Andalusia.
There are more green-fingered antics on the title track, with its slow, bluesy-psych groove – it’s like a stripped-back take on Marc Bolan’s Hippy Gumbo, with Robert literally leading us down the garden path: ‘Won’t you come along with me into the instant garden? Won’t you accompany me down in the undergrowth?’
Things take a country turn on the delightful Philosophy, with Robert finding peace in a haven by the sea, and the mesmerising, acoustic-led shuffle, Supernatural Seas, which is sung by Deighton, is a magical and mystical trip – ‘I’m away from the poison breeze / High above supernatural seas’ – with a killer electric guitar break.
The spiralling Endless Circle is a bewitching and autumnal folk ballad written and sung by Deighton that has shades of Paul Weller and Nick Drake, but the Bolan boogie of the playful Superstitious Woman lightens the mood, as Robert tells us how the song’s female protagonist is trying to blow his mind.
‘The spiralling Endless Circle is a bewitching and autumnal folk ballad written and sung by Deighton that has shades of Paul Weller and Nick Drake’
Album closer, Crying Like A Child is one of the record’s more soulful and left-field moments, with Robert repeating the title phrase against a backdrop of guitars – acoustic strumming and some psych-tinged, FX-laden electric work.
It’s a wonderful record – intimate and pastoral, with a sense of mystery and exoticism. Let’s call it a garden of earthly delights – there’s plenty to dig here…
This year was a strong one for Americana records – one of our favourites snuck out just before the end of the year: Faith In Us by singer-songwriter, guitarist and producer, Tony Poole, who was a member of ‘70s English rock band Starry Eyed and Laughing, who were often labelled ‘the British Byrds’, due to their jangly sound – Poole is a wizard with a 12-string electric Rickenbacker.
Poole, who is also one third of Americana trio, Bennett Wilson Poole, released his first ever solo album in late 2025.
Self-produced, it opens with the chiming and existential title track – Poole’s Rickenbacker rings clear and true – a life-affirming and beautiful song about believing in the good in humanity: “If we don’t have faith in us, what is anything worth? If we don’t begin from trust, we’re just some dust blowing round this Earth.”
Next up we’re in lighter territory – on the jaunty and groovy guitar pop of Chelsea Girls (1965), Poole finds himself transported back in time to London’s King’s Road in the Swinging Sixties.
While riding on a No.11 bus heading to Sloane Square, he contemplates how great it is to be alive in 1965, but, with prior knowledge of what lies ahead, he warns of the death of the peace and love era in ’69, and the impending Vietnam War.
It’s a fun and infectious song – Twiggy gets a namecheck, as does the Ready Steady Go! TV show and its host, Cathy McGowan – and it climaxes with a ‘60s psychedelic rock freak out.
The soaring This Slice of Time takes us back to the present day – in a moody and powerful song, which was inspired by a demo Poole was sent by US musician, Nelson Bragg (Brian Wilson), we hear how the Amazon Rainforest is being burned to raise cattle to turn into burgers.
Social and political issues also get a look-in on the brooding Imagine This – specifically the suffering caused to immigrants by Trump’s policy on the U.S.-Mexico border.
The track opens with an ominous psychedelic drone and tribal drums and then heads skywards, driven by Poole’s shimmering Rickenbacker.
There’s a touch of Beatles psych and the sound of the chaos theory butterfly flapping its wings on the anthemic jangle rock of Marcie Dancing (On A Butterfly’s Wings) – musically it’s joyous, but the song comes with a warning: “If everybody’s waiting for everybody else to come and save the world, we’ll still be waiting when it’s too late and we’re past the point of no return …”
‘The track opens with an ominous psychedelic drone and tribal drums and then heads skywards, driven by Poole’s shimmering Rickenbacker’
There’s a cinematic feel to Love or Something, which has a different vibe to most of the other tracks – atmospheric ‘80s synths create a ghostly atmosphere on a late-night, jazz-infused song that’s set on the neon-soaked streets of Copenhagen.
Album closer, Film Noir clocks in at just over six minutes – a magnificent and mysterious, Neil Young-style psych-rock epic.
Faith In Us is currently only available on CD – you can order it online at www.starryeyedandlaughing.com – but there are plans for a deluxe double vinyl version in 2026, depending on demand.
One of the other members of Bennett Wilson Poole released a great Americana album this year – Robin Bennett, who, along with his brother, Joe, plus Jamie Dawson (drums), Tom Collison (keys) and Nick Fowler (guitar) – make up The Dreaming Spires.
Their third album, Normal Town, explored themes of home, nostalgia, alienation, escapism and the beauty – and drudgery – of the everyday.
The sublime, nostalgic and atmospheric title track, which was also the first single, pays homage to their hometown of Didcot, which, in 2017, was deemed “the most normal town in England” by a bunch of number-crunching researchers.
The Dreaming Spires – photo by John Morgan
“I don’t want to die in a normal town,” pleads Robin Bennett, over plaintive piano and cinematic twangy guitar.
‘Normal Town is less jangly than their previous albums – no 12-string Rickenbackers were used during the making of this record’
Didcot is also referenced in Cooling Towers – a reflective, bass-driven, country-tinged song inspired by the town’s power station, which was a famous landmark, until it was finally demolished in 2020.
Less jangly than their previous albums – no 12-string Rickenbackers were used during the making of this record – Normal Town has anthemic and political, Who-like power-rock (Normalisation), which sounds like Big Star covering Baba O’Riley; the Springsteen-esque crime story Stolen Car; 21st Century Light Industrial – imagine the observational songwriting of Fountains of Wayne but transplanted from New York to a business park in Oxfordshire – the folky travelling song, Coming Home, and the spacey psychedelia of Where I’m Calling From, which is a message beamed in from the future.
“It’s quite a nostalgic album – a lot of the time period I’m talking about is as much about 25 years ago as it is about now,” says Robin Bennett. “You can get to adulthood and be a bit disappointed by it – where’s the transcendent experience we were looking for?”
That’s a good question – we’ve no idea, but Normal Town is a good place to start.
From Americana to Canadiana… This year’s Waves Of Desire, from Toronto singer-songwriter, Jerry Leger, was a mostly warm sounding set of songs, and was influenced by acts including The Beatles, The Everly Brothers, Roy Orbison, and The Zombies, whose music first inspired Leger as a kid.
“I get a certain feeling from those songs and memories, and I wanted to try and get that same feeling with Waves Of Desire,” he says. “I’m not trying to copy or sound like those songs, but just getting close to the feeling they gave me.”
Made in Germany, during a short break from touring Europe, Waves Of Desire was recorded at Cologne’s historic Maarweg Studios, which began as an EMI studio in the 1950s and still has its main room virtually unchanged, with a mix of vintage and modern gear. Leger’s vocals were all recorded live with the band through an old German microphone.
Suzan Köcher and Jerry Leger – photo by Katie Methot.
Produced by Leger, the album features his longtime group, The Situation, (Dan Mock – bass/vocals), Kyle Sullivan – drums/vocals, and Alan Zemaitis (keys/vocals), as well as contributions from Suzan Köcher (harmony vocals) and Julian Müller (co-production / guitar).
Several of the songs make great use of close harmonies and textured analogue synths – first single, the atmospheric and ‘50s-tinged, It’s So Strange, which is a song about vulnerability and starting over, has doubled acoustic guitars, Mellotron and Everly-Brothers-style harmonies.
Album opener, the jaunty Alcatraz – written about one person leaving a relationship, while the other is left in confusion – is driven by some superb, warm Dylan-style organ. The song’s heavy subject matter is nicely juxtaposed with a breezy, poppy and uplifting backing, which Leger says was inspired by The Shangri-Las.
Let Me See How It Ends – another song influenced by the Everly Brothers –sounds like a long-lost ‘50s breakup ballad – and the organ-drenched Calling A Bluff mixes a sultry, Rolling Stones shuffle on the verses with a big power-pop chorus.
On the ethereal and haunting, We’re Living In This World, Leger envisages the protagonist floating in space – there’s tinkly piano and a Moog synth creates a breathing effect, which adds to the feeling of disconnection: ‘You’re living in this world/ I’m in the twilight zone,’ sings Leger.
Stranded is another song about isolation – Zemaitis plays a spacey synth solo, which heightens the mood – and on the nostalgic and partly autobiographical, Willow Ave, Leger reminisces about childhood walks with his father around Toronto’s East End.
‘On the ethereal and haunting, We’re Living In This World, Leger envisages the protagonist floating in space – there’s tinkly piano and a Moog synth creates a breathing effect, which adds to the feeling of disconnection’
The title track is an upbeat rocker, and the album ends with the reflective, piano-led ballad, Back In Love With Me Again, which opens with the lines: ‘Another day older, another job done…’
It’s been 20 years since Leger’s first solo album – 2005’s Jerry Leger & the Situation. Waves Of Desire sees the start of a new partnership with Hamburg-based label, DevilDuck Records, and next year he will be touring the UK to support the release.
Leger is a fan of vintage soul music, so he’ll probably dig this year’s album by Essex-based band The Milk.
Borderlands, which was influenced by acts including Brian Wilson, Paul McCartney, Miles Davis and Michael Kiwanuka, is the group’s most ambitious and fully realised record yet – a stunning set of cinematic soul songs.
It’s a melting pot of ‘60s and ‘70s-style soul, modern funk and jazz, and vintage film soundtracks.
Like all the best records, the album takes you on an emotional journey and is designed to be listened to in one sitting – it’s a coherent piece of work that starts with the striking and filmic I Need Your Love and closes with the epic love song, I Saved My Best For You, with its silver screen strings.
“We’re very much into making a body of songs that has a beginning, a middle and an end – that’s how I listen to music at home,” says Rick Nunn, the band’s vocalist and keys player.
‘Like all the best records, the album takes you on an emotional journey and is designed to be listened to in one sitting – it’s a coherent piece of work that starts with the striking and filmic I Need Your Love and closes with the epic love song, I Saved My Best For You, with its silver screen strings’
“I like the commitment of putting a record on and then having 40 or 45 minutes when I don’t need to make another decision.”
He adds:“People who like soul music will hopefully like it, but we also just wanted to make something that was a talking point in itself – even if it’s not your thing, it’s a big-sounding record.”
“We spent about a year arguing about the references and batting ideas around, and eventually we all gave in and said, ‘Let’s make something huge.’”
The Milk
Nunn explains how very few bands have got the resources or the budget to make a high-production, mid-‘70s soul record, but that having their own studio allows the group to have more time and creative freedom, and lets them achieve their ambitions without costing a fortune.
It’s a move that’s certainly paid off – with Borderlands, The Milk men well and truly delivered.
Sounding huge was something that baritone-voiced singer-songwriter and pianist, Tom Hickox, achieved on his long-awaited third album, The Orchestra of Stories.
A grandiose affair, inspired by the lush, dramatic and mysterious sound of Scott Walker’s seminal solo albums of the late ’60s, The Orchestra of Stories is a stunning piece of work – a set of largely story-based songs on which the London-based Hickox collaborated with the Chineke! Orchestra – Europe’s first majority black and ethnically diverse orchestra – and the Onyx Brass ensemble, as well as guitarist, Shez Sheridan, from Richard Hawley’s band.
As if that wasn’t adventurous enough, Hickox produced the album himself, which was a first for him.
“It wasn’t initially my intention to produce it myself,” he says. “I co-produced my first one with Colin Elliot, who works with Richard Hawley, and I produced the last one with a bassist friend of mine called Chris Hill.
“I really enjoy collaborating, because, otherwise, it’s quite lonely, but I met up with a couple of people and talked to them about doing this record, but nothing clicked, so I just started getting on with it myself.”
‘The Orchestra of Stories is a stunning piece of work – a set of largely story-based songs on which Hickox collaborated with the Chineke! Orchestra and the Onyx Brass ensemble, as well as guitarist, Shez Sheridan, from Richard Hawley’s band’
He adds: “As I started getting into it, I realised quite soon it was my vision and that I had to do it because of the way it was forming. It’s a massive production and it took a long time to get together – it required lots of different studios, lots of musicians and lots of money!”
The orchestral arrangements were recorded in London’s AIR Studios, while other parts, including vocals, drums, bass, piano and guitar, were laid down in studios in North and South London and Sheffield.
Opening song, The Clairvoyant, inspired by a tragic tale of a man in the US, who was hustled out of his entire life savings and house by a fraudulent psychic, is the perfect scene setter – Mariachi brass gives way to a piano and Hickox’s deep and rich croon, before a moody string arrangement creeps in and then unfolds. The effect is startling and unsettling – a very powerful start to the record.
The gorgeous Chalk Giants has a lighter touch, with acoustic guitar, stately strings and pastoral horns – the song finds Hickox on a bucolic English road trip, searching for greater meaning in life.
The serene mood doesn’t last for long, though… Chalk Giants is followed by the dark, brooding and satirical Game Show, with its sleazy, James Bond horns, filmic strings and news audio clips recorded by CNN’s Clarissa Ward, BBC’s Nick Beake and the actor, Rory Kinnear.
For the lyrics, Hickox took inspiration from the Cambridge Analytica and Edward Snowden personal data scandals.
On haunting album closer, The Port Quin Fishing Disaster, we are transported to a small Cornish fishing village, where a tragedy strikes during a raging storm, while in The Failed Assassination of Fidel Castro, Hickox plays the part of Marita Lorenz, who was tasked with seducing the Cuban revolutionary and putting poison in his moisturiser but ended up becoming his lover.
These stories are a gift for a talented and inventive singer-songwriter like Hickox, who has a brilliant eye – and ear – for taking curious tales and turning them into fully-realised and often epic compositions.
In 2024, our favourite album of the year was Good Grief by Bernard Butler and this year he contributed to another record we loved – the self-titled debut album by supergroup Butler, Blake and Grant, on which he was joined by Norman Blake (Teenage Fanclub) and James Grant (Love and Money).
The trio were formed when a mutual friend in the music industry suggested they play together for a concert in rural Scotland – he had a hunch that they’d work well as a group. That led to some shows in Glasgow, as part of the Celtic Connections festival – Blake and Grant are both Scottish.
Writing and recording for it began at Blake’s home, on the banks of the River Clyde – the group were looking to capture the stripped-back vibe of their concerts, with guitars and vocal harmonies.
“We went up to Norman’s to hang out for a couple of days and see what would happen,” Butler says. “It really worked – there was no set way of doing it – we just sat around in armchairs playing, and James said, ‘I’ve got this tune…’, he started playing a song, and we joined in and started working it out together.”
‘Writing and recording for the album began at Blake’s home, on the banks of the River Clyde – the group were looking to capture the stripped-back vibe of their concerts, with guitars and vocal harmonies’
He adds: “I asked Norman if he had any recording gear and he did, so we got out some mics and set them up in his living room – we had no headphones or isolation. There was no studio set up – just three microphones plugged into a computer. We said we would record everything we did – just press record and leave it. We did a song by James and one of Norman’s, then I wrote something quickly, overnight.”
There were more sessions at Blake’s place, and then Butler took the recordings to his studio in London, where he added overdubs and mixed the tracks.
First single and album opener, Bring An End, which started out as a fragment of an idea on Blake’s phone, is a good indication of what’s to follow – a gorgeous and intimate, autumnal folk song with acoustic strumming, some delightful harmonies, and Butler playing some impressive and inventive electric guitar.
It’s followed by the sublime, One And One Is Two, which is steeped in the chiming folk-rock sound of The Byrds, and was the first song the trio worked on together.
Butler takes lead vocals on his own composition, The 90s, a wry commentary on his past – “We’ve been loving the 90s for far too long”, which is a jaunty tune with a retro-soul feel, thanks to its strings, Blake and Grant’s backing vocals, handclaps and some neat, ‘70s-style guitar work.
The Old Mortality – another of Butler’s songs – is one of the record’s moodier moments. It’s a dramatic and atmospheric track, with swelling violin by Sally Herbert, and would’ve fitted well on Butler’s Good Grief.
Butler, Blake and Grant will more than likely attract comparisons to Crosby, Stills & Nash, and they channel that on Grant’s, laidback harmony-laden Seemed She Always Knew, which was inspired by Joni Mitchell and has echoes of Laurel Canyon running through it.
As you would expect from the coming together of three such talented musicians, Butler, Blake and Grant is a strong album of well-crafted songs that has an authentic and traditional charm to it. Let’s hope they make another record soon.
One of the other most inspired collaborations of the year was 84-year-old Canadian folk singer, Bonnie Dobson, teaming up with London’s cosmic cowboys, The Hanging Stars, to make a brand-new, eight-track album, Dreams. It was a match made in heaven – you could say it was as if the Stars had aligned…
Dobson’s gorgeous and haunting voice is perfectly complemented by the band’s shimmering, psychedelic Americana sound, like on the first single and album opener, the sublime and hazy Baby’s Got The Blues.
It’s followed by the fun and upbeat, country-tinged Trouble, which recalls ‘60s Nancy Sinatra. In the song, Dobson has a chance encounter with a guy in a club, is attracted to him, but knows trouble when she sees it: “One, two, three, and four, what are you waiting for? Five, six, and seven, eight, come on darling, don’t make me wait.”
On the moody Don’t Look Down there’s more trouble brewing – we’re taken on a trip into the desert for a Spaghetti Western soundtrack, with Mariachi horns and twangy guitar.
On A Morning Like This also has a cinematic vibe. With its lush, ‘60s-style strings – played on a Solina String Ensemble synthesizer – and guest vocals by Hanging Stars frontman, Richard Olson, it evokes the wonderful and slightly spooky-psych pop of Nancy and Lee.
There’s yet more drama on the stunning You Don’t Know, with finger-picked acoustic guitar, French horn and wintry orchestration, it feels haunted by the ghost of Eleanor Rigby.
Friends and family play a big part in the lyrics of the album’s reflective title track, which has Dobson, who lives in the UK, dreaming of Canada, but also singing about walking in Somerset and the hills of Shropshire: “You always can go home again, but you never can go back.”
It’s a truly beautiful and moving song, and, like the rest of the record, the stuff that dreams are made of.
Finally, it would be remiss of me not to mention an album that I contributed to this year – Document by Liverpool singer-songwriter, Edgar Jones.
I was delighted to be asked by the label AV8 Records to write the sleeve notes for it, based on an interview I did with Jones.
His 2023 album, Reflections of a Soul Dimension, was a lavish affair, with strings and brass, and influences including Burt Bacharach and Scott Walker, as well as Motown and Northern Soul, but Document is just him, in a stripped-down style, with a guitar and pedals, captured live to tape.
Based on his current live set, it’s a blistering, soulful and raw-sounding record, with covers, new versions of some old Jones classics, and blueprints for songs that will end up on his future albums.
Talking about the idea behind it, Jones says: “I don’t sit there and think, ‘Hmmm – what’s my next project going to be?’ I already had two projects on the go – one was a follow up to Reflections of a Soul Dimension called Representations, on Stereopar Records. I’d written all these songs for it and done the demos, building up the rhythm arrangements on which the strings would be added.
‘Based on his current live set, it’s a blistering, soulful and raw-sounding record, with covers, new versions of some old Jones classics, and blueprints for songs that will end up on his future albums’
“With Reflections of a Soul Dimension, I was lucky to catch Steve Parry, the producer and arranger, during some downtime in lockdown – he’s a very busy man – but we still can’t find a window to do the follow up. The incentive is there and so is the love for the project, but it’s about finding the time… It can’t be made cheaply.”
Edgar Jones
He adds: “AV8 Records had been saying to me for years, ‘Let’s do a project’, and I said, ‘Yeah – when I’ve got something…’ It turned out that I did get something – and, again, it was soul music…
“It’s a kind of a vanity project – mid-‘60s Motown stuff. I’m pretending to be a vocal group called the 4Tastics. It was going well, but we hit a wall – everyone in the band had something mad going on. There were personal problems, me included. It’s kind of 90% done now, but when it was 60% done, I was commiserating with [journalist] Lois Wilson, who said that while I was waiting for the two projects to take off, I should go into the studio for a day and bust out as much as I could of what I do live.
“I thought that was a great idea – I could revisit some old classics – put some new life into them, as I’ve been doing on stage – and put down some of the blueprints for Representations and the 4Tastics album.”
This year’s record, Document, is a great, er, document of where Jones is at, and we can’t wait to hear his next two albums when they’re done and dusted.
Here’s a list of Say It With Garage Flowers’ favourite albums of 2025 and an accompanying Spotify playlist: please note, as it stands, Tony Poole’s Faith In Us and Edgar Jones’ Document are not available on Spotify.
Let’s talk about the new album and get some background on it. Since we last spoke, the band has had some lineup changes. Your pedal steel player, Joe Harvey-Whyte, has left and your drummer, Paulie Cobra, who played on the new record, is on sabbatical from playing live. Charlie Salvidge, who was in TOY, is now sitting in on drums…
‘Let It Slide’, from your new album, is jangly, like Big Star or early R.E.M…
Say It With Garage Flowers 