Somewhere in Dublin, behind a door nobody has been invited through, a person or persons unknown are bashing a lump of metal into submission. The result is "Nail The Noise," a single that arrives at the pulse of a pub brawl and the posture of a seminar, and which settles every argument it starts by getting the whole room to dance.

Home studios are usually where ambition goes to be politely lowered. Bedroom producers tend to emerge with a few sketches, a fondness for reverb and an apology. Claire Hadidjenar and Matthew Walker, who record as Apple Eyes from a corner of London, have used theirs to make a finished record. "Be" is a single of such assured, glittering pop craftsmanship that its homespun origins feel like a conjuring trick.

There is a particular kind of comeback that announces itself with a press conference, a countdown clock and a tearful interview. Then there is Dia The Libra's, which slips in wearing sunglasses, mutters something about chaos, and proceeds to rearrange the furniture. "INTRODUCTION" is the first single from her forthcoming album *maybe i've always been more comfortable in chaos*, and it is the rare opening gambit that makes you want to see the rest of the hand.

Debut albums usually arrive with a manifesto under one arm. *Cinder of a Fading Dream* arrives with a box of charred keepsakes. Chosen Undead, five musicians from Hainburg who only became a band in 2024, have built their first record from the wreckage of an earlier project and an album that never got to exist. They sifted the ashes, kept what still glowed, and bolted it to new material. The result is gloriously, unapologetically heavy, and more emotionally literate than the genre usually bothers to be.

Anxiety rarely sounds this thrilling. Komaframe, the solo alias of a Roman multi-instrumentalist who has so far kept to the shadows, has called his new single "Overthinking", and the title is a neat joke at the music's expense. The mind at 3 a.m. does not meander. It tailgates, flashes its lights and refuses to pull over. This is the sound of that, and I would be lying if I said I minded.

Pop music has always had a talent for smuggling awkward ideas past the doorman. Ooberfuse, the London duo of Cherrie Anderson and Hal St John, have built a career on this trick. Their collaborator list runs from Snoop Dogg to Cameroonian musician Abdel Tchatchet. Their conscience stays on the dancefloor, and it has rarely been dressed more sharply than on "Electrify".

Most of us have, at some low ebb, sought comfort in the misfortunes of strangers. Nikkole Stone, the Toronto singer-songwriter who is Dynasty Four, did it with unusual thoroughness: all twenty seasons of *Hell's Kitchen* in two months, a sustained act of self-medication by shouting. Where others would have emerged with a sourdough starter and a vague sense of shame, Stone emerged with a single, and a very good one.

Seven players, one question, and nearly seven minutes to chew it over. JFK Blue's new single is a slab of blues rock that has no interest in being polite.

Twenty-one years is a long time to be a secret. Josh Orange, a Sydney folk-rock band, have spent that stretch writing, recording and playing for the faithful few, and their sixth album, *The Fire & The Call*, finally gives that patience somewhere to land. It runs to ten songs and thirty-nine minutes, with nothing wasted, nothing padded and nothing apologised for. It is the sound of a band who know exactly who they are.

Post-punk has spent forty-odd years learning how to dress for a funeral, and the more interesting question is whether it can dance at the wake. The House Flies, four men from Moline, Illinois, answer with "Lost Literature", the second single from their forthcoming Lions and Ore. It is gloomy, gripping and very hard to keep your feet still through.