These Fresh Faves were picked by our readers over the weekend – and reviewed by Fresh On The Net’s Del Osei-Owusu this week. You can hear all these tracks in a single Soundcloud playlist here.

Hi everyone, it’s the penultimate faves before we break up for the summer! Thanks as always to all the artists who have submitted tracks this year, and of course to our readers, we will be back on 8th September.

The show has taken a pause for now, so I will not be accepting any new tracks for airplay, but will be back hopefully before we reconvene in September.

To the faves!

B OF BRIZ – Profoundly Sick Society

B of Briz is a rapper that I’ve kept an eye on for quite a long time, she’s been a fave a few times, and with her fearless lyrics and easy flow it’s not a surprise.

This is a track that uses 2020s life in its poetical imagery:

“So mask up my friends,
Protect our communities”

This could be interpreted as speaking about both COVID, or taking to the streets to marching in protest about the issues in the world today – take your pick.

This is all performed in B’s spoken almost whispered voice, she speaks with authority and it fits so well over the electronic glitching drum beat, the bassline has a pitch bend on it, and it draws you back to the centre of the track as it’s it’s hypnotic.

This is just brilliant.

B Of Briz is an artist who’s ever elusive, and being from Bristol she’s got every right to hide her identity like Banksy. In fact… Banksy is that you???

She’s a favourite of Tom Robinson’s, had support from BBC Introducing and 6 Music, and I will forever be a fan of hers since the genius of “What Would Buffy Do?”

Official | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Bandcamp

BARDIE – Had It All

I love the choices of melody on this, it gives it a really psychedelic feeling to the overall track. There are some nice harmonies in there too, but what really caught my attention was the saxophone, it punctuates the melody it gets a little solo towards the end, which is really lovely!

Overall production wise, I like the way that this passes through the filters, it give it a bit of a journey audio wise, it’s all warped sounding, but the warping adds to the character of the song.

One thing I always say, a mix can make or break a song for me. And this makes the song for sure!

Bardie is the alter ego of Dave Harding, he’s been cutting his teeth playing and writing for various indie bands and after 15 years this is his first solo project.

Linktree | Facebook

CONSOLERS – Watcher

Time to go the indie rock route, the bassline throbs under the vocals, and it gives you a pretty good build up!

This has a big sound overall, with the guitars providing the power.it’s got grit, and I like that about this song.

One thing I’d like to say though is the lack of complete song lyric, I looked it up on Apple Music to get a feel of what the song is about and you only get two parts of the verse:

“They are all watching,
But I am undercover, waiting,
I’m trying to catch your eye,

They say I’m crazy, I’m not
They say move along I won’t
Still trying to catch your eye.”

It’s very much like someone’s singing to their obsession, that’s the idea I get from the lyrics, and going after their prey.

Lyrically it’s scary but I think you get the idea from the music as well as it prowls and growls.

This track is a force of nature unto itself!

There isn’t much information about this band, however from what I can find, they are a 5 piece band, it seems they have connections to Belfast, and have a fondness for Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

I see what you did there. Don’t think I didn’t get the reference.

OHHHHHHHHHHH! That makes so much more sense now!

Okay, let’s come at this again.

So, let’s take two steps back.

Remember I mentioned that B of Briz had a fondness for Buffy?

Well, Buffy is not someone that acts alone she has a crew called The Scooby Gang, among them is the watcher – think of them as Yoda, Merlin, Dumbledore… Whichever father figure/mentor/teacher that you want to put into this equation. The deep cut reference to bands that have played The Bronze is the hangout in Sunnydale for the teens it’s where the gigs go on and where everyone hangs out.

The epiphany that happened when I realised this connection?

Epic.

Instagram | Facebook

DIVIDE THE SUN – Your Kingdom

The guitar work on this is pretty tasty, but that’s not what caught my ear, is that an Irish accent?

I’m not entirely sure. Either way it’s not unpleasant!

The words are spoken softly but build up.

The words in question:

Never look a gift horse in the mouth,
Underestimate your p’s and q’s,
In your tower looking down on your kingdom,
Of a life we did not create nor choose,
Never ever bite the hand that feeds you,
When you’re striving for power and control,
Everything you thought was irrelevant
As it slides even further into the black hole.

These lyrics are thought provoking, could it be a veiled dig at the governments? Or to those in positions of power? I’m not sure – make of it what you will.

This is all set against a backdrop of guitar, bass, drums and harmonised vocals, it goes in a round, and this is my favourite part of the song. The song is anthemic, and so well executed!

Divide The Sun are my one to watch.

There isn’t that much about this band online, all I can find is that they are a duo – Gaz Moore and RDB, and they are multinstrumentalists based in LA, Wigan and London.

Instagram | Twitter/X

LEWISLAND – Kung Fu

Time for some slick soul now, this is polished production, bringing strings, electric piano, wah’d guitars, and a great drum beat to groove under…

This has late 70s Motown written all over it and that’s not a bad thing! This has all the good things going for it – my favourite part is at 1:56 as the harmonies are spot on! The way the repeating of the “love you” comes in, it reminds me of 90s R&B, artists like Boyz II Men, Blackstreet et al come to mind.

This is my track of the week.

Born in Lagos, Nigeria, raised in Italy and now based in London, Lewisland is a self taught musician, rapper, multi-instrumentalist and producer.

Official | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter/X | YouTube | Bandcamp

MONDO FREAKS – Won’t You Decide

The time machine is working overtime here, this next one takes you to the early 80s giving us The Whispers vibes, with a little bit of SOS Band added in, the analog synth stabs really lift the track, as well as the soulful vocals, you could imagine this being on Soul Train, if the bass player isn’t influenced by Bernard Edwards then I’d be very surprised, I present the bass solo at 3:56 – so much slapping and popping and I LOVE IT!

One thing to note here, the single cover is a vinyl record, complete with a whole in the middle, so it definitely took me back to the 80s – ahhh vinyl!

Mondo Freaks were formed by Luke and Graeme Pogson, they share a deep love of late 70s/ early 80s funk.

Looking at their socials it looks like they’ve been around since at least 2012, the band lineup is quite a big one too, looks like there are 10 of them!

This gets my chef’s kiss.

Linktree | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Bandcamp

OSWALD SLAIN – Firing Line

Time for some indie pop, this one has a very catchy melody in the intro that is featured throughout the song. This song talks about how even when the chips are down that the songwriter will be there for you -citing things like being the parachute when you start to fall, the voice of reason when you know it all, and being the slow motion moment when you crash the car, and being the cheap liquor to the free bar…

Lyrically it just gave me a flashback to Alanis Morrissette’s “Ironic” – everyone knows that as soon as you hear “It’s like rain…” the response is “On your wedding day”. For me this is going to be that call and response in the lyrics, it’s easy to remember, and is right up my street.

Oswald Slain are an alternative band from Bristol, originally known as Little Thief, their label is known as Bad Sandy and features a picture of Sandy from Grease in full leather. I like that pop culture reference!

Linktree | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube

SAM WRAY – Daisy Chains

This comes with added sound effects at the beginning, it sounds like an outside recording from a park, then adding in the drums along with a guitar, bass drums and piano it gets to be quite a well thought out production!

The lyrics reference meeting someone in the twilight when the drugs hadn’t yet been prescribed -could this be a reference to mental health but then meeting someone that’s also crazy but you still find peace within the wind blowing?

That’s my interpretation…

There’s a reference to the New York party scene too, so maybe New York means something to them both.

Either way, this song is thought provoking, and with each listen it has such a calming effect on me.

Sam Wray is my one to watch.

Sam Wray is a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Milton Keynes, now based in South London.

Hey neighbour!

Instagram | Facebook

SOCKITTOME – Swim

I like the synth pop elements of this, the glitching (You have to love the glitching!). The beat is slightly swung, which opens up the door for the lyrics to not follow a certain pattern, it must be exhausting singing this at normal tempo and then slightly speeding up. It certainly keeps things interesting!

I had to go back and listen to the track a few times because there was whispering going on at the beginning, but it’s just “Sock it to me” hidden in the mix being repeated several times. Rhythmically you’d think it was beatbox, but it’s not, I like that, very cleverly done!

Keeping with the electro pop theme, the vocals being put through effects really keeps this track going.

All in a great tune!

SOCKiTTOME is Matt Carter, I actually had this sent to me by his PR which comes in handy – Tom Robinson calls his music electro pop perfection, and also quotes BBC Radio, and BBC Introducing sources in his intro. This is from his new album called Safety In Jumpers, I’m wondering if there’s a link to the pictures of sheep on his Facebook profile?

Instagram | Facebook | Twitter/X | YouTube | Bandcamp

TAKEDA – Sugar Mountain

To round off the faves we have a bit of classic rock here, I could go even as far as to say that this has a grunge feel to it. Would that be classified as classic in this time period?

Oh God. I’m feeling old.

This track has such a menace to it, but then that’s something that came out of 90s off the back end of sparkling glittery pop, it’s slow but the drummer’s allowed to play rolls on it, giving it a really solid back beat, it goes through peaks and dips – definitely arena ready!

Anyway this track is from a band that was formed in 2022, with a very interesting backstory – you get a lot of interesting backstories here at FOTN. This track has the menace, distortion on the bass – just a little not too much – and the off beat gives you that feeling that this could have been on of those bands that could have headlined a gig at The Bronze, in fact I’m pretty sure that Consoler might like this band!

Somehow I’ve come full circle with this review and I’m proud.

Takeda was formed when Josh Harrison left a cult in rural England. He recruited Charlie Wilson on drums and David Woodgett on bass.

I told you they had an interesting backstory.

Linktree | Instagram | Bandcamp

PS from Del: If you’ve submitted a track that hasn’t been picked for the Listening Post, our team has definitely listened to it and there’s no need to send it again: feel free to send us an even stronger track another week. The same goes if you were picked for the Listening Post but didn’t feature in our Fresh Faves.

But if we’ve recently featured you in our Fresh Faves – please wait three months before sending us another track, so we have space to help other deserving artists… For more info see Robinson Has A Good Old Moan.