Like a shooting star streaking across the night sky, the summer break wrapped us in its burning light before giving way to a back-to-school season that promises to be both fertile and tumultuous. Prolonging this warm voluptuousness before awakening the rituals of September, where the electric trances of a fervent live indie rock scene are already looming, the month of August gifted us its final gems.
ALBUM CRUSH: IT GOES ON BY WESTSIDE COWBOY
Discovered by chance opening for Black Country, New Road at the Casino de Paris in October 2025, seen again a month later at the Pitchfork Music Festival’s Avant-Garde nights, and again, opening for Geese at La Cigale in March 2026, leaving our ears utterly ecstatic and our hearts on fire, Manchester’s own Westside Cowboy has graced us with the release of its debut LP, It Goes On, on August 21st!
With the pure and clear intention of thrilling both the senders and receivers of this new sound, the fiercely anti-screen, anti-digital, anti-AI two-guitars-bass-drums quartet delivers a raw, spontaneous, and intuitive rock with no frills.
Live, Westside Cowboy is an invitation to chase that urgent, exhilarating excitement of youth discovering, igniting, and falling passionately in love with music.
In the studio, the album is made more polished, cohesive, and harmonious, yet no less rich in tense, biting guitar intertwinings and soaring vocal harmonies! A must-listen, especially their opening track “Kick Stones (The Boys).”
A STUNNING VIDEO CLIP FROM PHOEBE BRIDGERS
Released alongside her album Lost Weekend on August 14th, the music video for the single “I Can’t Wait” takes a completely different path from the intimate, soft-spoken ballads of Californian singer-songwriter and guitarist Phoebe Bridgers. Co-directed by Chris Maggio and Pablo Rochat, the video offers a warped, surreal, “bug-eyed” vision of Los Angeles. Could this strange and distorted visual treatment be signaling a musical metamorphosis for the artist?
LIVE GEM(S) OF THE MONTH: ROCK EN SEINE 2026
The 2026 edition of Rock en Seine wrapped up this August 30th, drawing 175,000 festival-goers over 5 days of rare intensity. Navigating between sweat-drenched mosh pits and a sonic power seldom matched, this year’s resolutely rock lineup swept crowds of passionate fans away, triumphantly carried by a transcendental energy.
The media have already thoroughly debriefed the highlights of this edition. No need, then, to dwell on the successful gamble of the opening night with Tyler, The Creator’s flawless show, nor on the imperial stage presence of Franz Ferdinand. We won’t rehash the efficiency of The Black Keys’ modern blues-rock, the high-octane fierce energy of Amyl & the Sniffers, or the electrifying power of Turnstile, who continue to brilliantly inject a pop-punk touch into their neo-hardcore. The same goes for Deftones and a deeply possessed Chino Moreno, or Mogwai and their cathartic, epileptic, and literally spellbinding post-rock.
As for the festival’s two true monuments, the verdict is definitive. On one hand, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds delivered a performance that was, once again, majestic, divine, and legendary. On the other, The Cure offered a masterful 2.5-hour closing set: a deeply moving Robert Smith, radiating absolute humility, backed by a drum-and-bass rhythm section of surgical precision, and a setlist that won everyone over.
This edition also served up its share of young gems, proving that the next generation and the future of the indie rock scene remain in very safe hands!
First off, a huge shout-out to Florence Road, the young all-female Irish alternative rock quartet who already have the mixtape Fall Back and a freshly released EP, Spring Forward, under their belt. Opening the festival on Thursday, they delivered a high-energy, generous set that garnered unanimous enthusiasm!
On Friday, TTSSFU, aka the young Manchester native Tasmin Nicole Stephens, whose family heritage is nothing short of impressive (daughter of AC/DC drummer Jimmy Stephens, granddaughter of Leonard Cohen), had the daunting task of playing simultaneously with Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. Yet she fully delivered on her promise as a rising grunge/shoegaze/dream-pop singer-songwriter! We can’t wait to hear what comes next…
And then, right in the heart of the festival’s most hard-punk-rock-alternative-on-fire day, the six Londoners of art-rock outfit Man/Woman/Chainsaw delivered an incredibly bold and powerful sonic feast on Saturday, all wrapped in a jubilant, chaotic effervescence led by an incandescent violinist. They have just dropped their debut album, Cannonball, and we rushed straight to it!
What a mystical experience it was to discover the striking compositions of Sweden’s Anna von Hausswolff on this balmy Sunday afternoon! With her powerful vocals and incredible expressiveness, we willingly let ourselves be carried away by a fascinating trance of bewitching instrumentals, completely captivated by the magic of the set. Wow. Sign us up for more!
Let’s wrap up with the lovely live surprise of Love Spells, fronted by the young Texan-turned-Californian Sir Taegan C’aion Harris. His passionate romanticism was beautifully supported by an androgynous vocal tone, inviting us to daydream during this enchanted interlude. Languid melodies and guitars plunged us into a hypnotic, velvety rock universe, as if nostalgic for a gentler era. His debut LP is titled Love is the Law. No second thoughts here.
Merci, Rock en Seine, with Love.
